Pay Up!
by Broken Twisted Lullabies
Summary: Or also known as: The Time Gabriel Beat the Devil at His Own Game. / They always say don't make a deal with the devil, but in Gabriel's defense this one was too good to pass up. All he had to do was stay single for 4 years, and win 50 . Piece of cake. But Lucifer's determined to win, and doesn't realize the ace up Gabriel's sleeve. [Asexual Supernatural Mini Bang 2019]
1. Grade 9

**So it's been a while, but hey, nothing says "sorry for not posting anything since like January at best, I'll make it up to you" than a 65k fic. Technically, this has been in my drafts as an idea for about four years and back in like April, I joined the ASMB (asexual supernatural mini bang) and was like, well, why not do this. Mini bangs are basically fanfics that are a minimum of like 5,000k and are often done in like three or four months and people sign up to do art for it, beta, or write. For this mini bang, it was supposed to be centered around a character who was either asexual or on the asexuality spectrum (demisexual/romantic, aromantic, etc.).**

**For anyone who doesn't know, this fic does feature an asexual and aromantic character. **_Asexual_** means not being sexually attracted to anyone, and **_Aromantic_** means not being romantically attracted to anyone.**

**This is based off my own bet I had made with a family friend. She's since forgotten, but I technically won it back in June (it was a lot simpler than the bet in this - just 4yrs no bf and then I get fifty bucks). **

**Shout out to my two lovely betas who helped with this monster of a fic (the first draft was 9k. In about 3 1/2 months in went from that to 65k), **pink unicorn** and **proper-punctuation** both of whom are on tumblr. Also, to the lovely artist, **Cenedrariva** (on tumblr), who did the art for this fic which you can find here: ** post/187555753338/pay-up-by-twisted-pride-part-of-the (** doesn't allow embedded links so you'll have to copy and paste it into a new window)**

**There's an overarching warning of swearing but any more serious ones will be put in the notes of the chapters! Enjoy! **

* * *

Out of all of his brothers, Gabriel was certain Lucifer was the one who lived up to his angelic name the most. Yes, the eldest, Michael was quite what you imagined the first archangel might be like - if his unfortunate short stint at Sunday school was anything - loyal, stoic, a natural born leader and fair-tempered Raphael could be quite healer-like: calm, cool, collected. But Lucifer, blond-haired, cigarette smoking and silver-tongued, was exactly what Gabriel had always pictured the devil to be - the charmer, who while not being the brains or heart, wasn't exactly dumb or cold-hearted.

Ever since he was a child, Lucifer would play a game where he'd offer or make deals with another person. His "deals with the devil" he joked, most of which were harmless, minus the few that caused some detentions or groundings here and there - usually Gabriel ended up being involved in those types of deals and would suffer the punishment as well. Over time, the bets and deals had grown more outlandish or daring, much to the disappointment of their father who had hoped they would slow down. and Gabriel, if he were smarter, perhaps he'd listen to Michael's warnings about the trouble these types of offers and bets might bring him. After all, Lucifer always won any bets they ever made - but this particular one had just been too good to not agree to for fourteen-year-old Gabriel.

It was New Year's Eve of 2015 and Gabriel's family had been invited to a friend of their father's house for a New Years Eve party. The whole evening had been relatively calm, as much as it would be with adults drinking and teenagers daring each other to sneak a bottle of vodka or whiskey from the bar in the kitchen. Gabriel had spent most of it with his friends, Jess and another family friend, Anna, mostly talking and joking around. Then, out of nowhere, Lucifer had appeared, grabbing him by the arm and sweeping Gabriel away from his friends and semi-crowded living room into the emptier hallway. This wasn't exactly characteristic-Lucifer behaviour and Gabriel raised a brow, his confusion and surprise only rising when Lucifer pulled out a twenty dollar bill and a five dollar bill.

"Wanna make a bet, little brother?" Lucifer asked, keeping his voice low enough that should Michael be close by or walk into the hallway, he wouldn't hear him.

"Depends."

"Aw don't be such a Michael, Gabe. This one'll be fun, trust me. And I can guarantee it's not illegal," Lucifer continued, mistaking Gabriel vague response as hesitance. "All you gotta do is last until your graduation without getting a girlfriend. If you do, you get twenty-five bucks."

Normally, Gabriel would scoff at such a bet. It wasn't exactly a very exciting one if he was honest, but this particular bet made Gabriel grin. Suddenly, out of all their previous dares, Gabriel has the upper hand in all of it. So, to say no to an easy twenty-five bucks would be foolish.

And, catching Lucifer's confident nature, it just made Gabriel even more willing to accept it. Oh, how easy it would be to fool the devil at his own game!

"So, what you're telling me, is that if I get a girlfriend before I graduate grade twelve, I owe you twenty-five bucks?" He makes sure to use Lucifer's exact words, no need to change the wording and hint at his success early. Not that that was much of an issue though, Gabriel mused, as he leans back against the wall. There's probably enough alcohol in his brother's system to stop him from noticing - after all, he had already created a bet with so many loopholes in it and mixing that with Lucifer's overconfidence and cluelessness at Gabriel's preferences in partners, such a bet is too perfect to alter and give Lucifer any semblance of an upper hand.

Lucifer nods, which makes Gabriel's easy grin widen. "Sounds good." His brother looks ready to speak but Gabriel keeps talking. If he's getting an easy twenty-five bucks already, why not aim higher? Not like he has much at risk. Besides, higher bets fed Lucifer's confidence and Gabriel can just imagine how sweet it'd be when Lucifer handed him over fifty dollars instead of twenty-five. "How about we raise the price though? Twenty-five seems too low, too easy," he challenges, leaning in closer.

"Oh yeah? What do you propose then, little brother?" Lucifer has a devilish grin now too.

In the distance, Gabriel can hear the rest of the party guests counting down from twelve, realizing it's nearing 2016.

"Fifty bucks."

His brother whistles, before giving him a look. "You sure you wanna take that chance, Gabriel?"

"What? You scared you'll lose or something, Luce?" Gabriel teases.

"Please, as if _you'd_ win." Lucifer rolls his eyes before sticking out his other hand for Gabriel to shake. "So, we have a deal?"

("_SIX! FIVE!")_

Gabriel chuckles, not at all fazed by Lucifer's expression. His cat-that-ate-the-canary grin might've formed some worry for Gabriel on any other bet, but this time it didn't.

"I ain't got all evening, brother," Lucifer chimes in.

(_FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE!)_

Grabbing his brother's hand, he shakes it, sealing the deal to the sound of shouting and cheering in the room beside them.

* * *

His grade eight graduation can't come faster, Gabriel finds, as the youngest of the Novak boys counts down the days before summer. He's eager to win the easy money from Lucifer, but as June creeps closer to an end, and teachers choose to instead play movies rather than teaching, the bet slips his mind for the time being. Besides, although made in December/January (depending how you wanted to look at it), it didn't become active until September 7th so Gabriel was allowed to put it to the back of his mind while focusing on two months of no school.

Eventually June ends and Gabriel lets the next eight weeks pass in a too quick blur of beach days, swimming in the pool and not even thinking of the bet. In fact, during the entire vacation, Gabriel doesn't even let it wander into his mind, doesn't spend it scheming like he usually would with a big bet against Lucifer (although he knows his brother is. Not that Lucifer will ever admit he spent eight weeks planning everything). But on September 6th, as Gabriel enjoys the last bits of his summer lying on the patio chair outside with a popsicle to watch the fireworks, Lucifer plops down across from him with a grin.

"School starts tomorrow. You excited, little brother?"

If Lucifer were another of Gabriel's brothers, he might take the question as a general inquiry of his current feeling about the start of high school. But this was Lucifer, which meant to serve as a reminder that the bet started officially tomorrow.

"You betcha, Luce," he tells his brother, turning to look away from the darkening sky to face Lucifer. "Can't wait to win fifty bucks."

Lucifer chuckles. "Just you wait, Gabe." He doesn't continue, and so Gabriel raises his popsicle to Lucifer, as if to salute and say the same right back to his brother.

* * *

Grade nine starts off relatively uneventful. The first week is mainly adjusting to a slightly different flow, trying to not get lost to class or walk into the wrong one. Gabriel's grateful he's got both Jess and Charlie in most of his classes, and most of his teachers are relatively nice. Overall, high school is nothing like the stereotypical experience movies and tv shows kept portraying it as - not that he was complaining. Gabriel preferred this kind of boring, not super clique-y high school over groups of popular people and jocks terrorizing people's lives before someone came around and tried to dethrone the popular girls (usually via some form of violence, humiliation or death).

What Gabriel is worried about, was the silence from Lucifer. He hadn't been expecting anything huge from his brother so quickly, especially with the large time frame they set for the bet, but at the same time, Lucifer could just as easily have something major planned that could occur within the first month. So Gabriel was always low-key keeping an eye or ear out for his brother, whether at school or not. There is no predicting what Lucifer might do.

"I'm telling you, he's probably gonna do nothing. He's probably gonna let you sit and freak out first," Charlie said, as the trio sat in the cafeteria during lunch. "Maybe that's part of his genius plan."

They had been discussing the bet after Gabriel had told them about it on the first day of school - well technically, Gabriel had mentioned it prior to September, but they didn't see a purpose to talk about it before the bet was even active - stuck trying to understand how Lucifer was approaching it.

Jess shakes her head. "That doesn't quite sound like Lucifer, though. He doesn't seem like the kind to not drop even the slightest of hints about something."

She then takes a bite from her sandwich.

Gabriel, who is sitting beside Charlie, shrugs. "It doesn't, but at the same time, we've never made bets for this long. Usually the longest is a month. But now he's got tons more time, it's hard to predict what Luce might be doing," he explains truthfully.

One thing about making bets with Lucifer was that he was completely unpredictable. That's what made their bets sometimes escalate too far or garner the attention of Michael and/or their father. Lucifer didn't like to do the same thing, didn't like to have his opponent to have the chance of predicting his next move and pairing that with a four-year-long bet, the range to which Lucifer could do was endless.

"I'm not too worried about losing the bet," Gabriel adds. "But the last thing I need is all the girls in school coming to my door, singing some silly cheesy song with a bunch of my favourite candies."

Charlie grins. "Dude, if he does that, firstly, it'll be hilarious. Second: promise me you'll give them my address after you kick them off your property."

Both Jess and Gabriel break out into laughter at her comment.

"Only you, Charlie, would use Gabe's bet as a way to get a girlfriend," Jess says between laughter, and Charlie reaches over to smack her when she didn't stop laughing. "Ow! Rude."

That makes Gabriel laugh harder.

"Hey Charls, your gay is showing."

"Oh shit, I didn't realize I was wearing my rainbow socks today," Charlie deadpans before cracking a smile and beginning to laugh as well.

Eventually when the laughter dies down, Gabriel before taking a bite of his pizza says, "I definitely will though. Can't let our poor little Charlie not have a girlfriend, can we?"

Charlie shakes her head.

"Seriously though, back to the bet."

Jess nods in agreement, continuing to eat her sandwich. "Maybe we just gotta wait a bit longer for him to start hinting at stuff?"

Gabriel sighs. "Guess so."

* * *

"So, Gabe, how's your classes?" Lucifer asks almost immediately after everyone's plates have food on them and the suddenness of the question almost make Gabriel spill the lemonade he was pouring everywhere.

Raphael steadies the container before glancing between his brothers carefully.

With all eyes on him, Gabriel secretly curses Lucifer for his stupid comment and timing. _Hey God, you sure the Devil ain't here at my dinner table? _

"Oh, you know, uneventful," Gabriel says in a casual tone, having a feeling he knows where this is going. Granted, he could be wrong, but then again, this is Lucifer, his brother. And possibly the actual devil (although Gabriel has yet to confirm that).

To avoid any further conversation, Gabriel shovels a large spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth, earning a reminder from Michael that he'd choke if he did that. Lucifer watches with an amused expression.

"Got any good teachers? Or do they all give you tons of homework?"

Gabriel, chewing on way too many mashed potatoes, tries to buy himself as much time as possible from answering the question because that's all Gabriel's got. Lucifer, once he's onto something, won't drop it, no matter what. And, although Gabriel's not certain where Lucifer's going with his line of questioning, he has an inkling it is related to their bet.

So he just shrugs, unable to swallow all the mashed potatoes in his mouth to answer. It's been almost two months since the start of school and the workload had been relatively light although it's beginning to pick up a bit, and by winter break, Gabriel knew it'd get a bit heavier. But overall, the work had been easy and had left him with, more often than not, fairly free weekends.

"So you're free this weekend?"

Now Michael's even looking at Lucifer weirdly. "Luci," he begins, but Lucifer waves it off.

"Relax, Mikey. I was just wondering if Gabe could help out a friend of mine. His little sister is in Gabe's grade and she's been having a tough time in Kolasovic's English class-" Michael winces slightly at the name- "so Oscar asked me to see if Gabriel was able to help her a bit with her essay to boost her mark."

"Was that the teacher you said always smelled like cigarettes?" Gabriel asks, finally swallowing the potatoes in his mouth and both Michael and Lucifer nodded.

"She was also an extremely hard marker," Michael adds. "Tough teacher to have first thing in ninth grade."

Gabriel looked at his two eldest brothers before glancing at Raphael, trying to gauge his expression. At first, Gabriel was certain this was a ploy to help give Lucifer the upper hand in their bet, but this almost seemed like a genuine kind action Lucifer was doing for his friend - not that Gabriel still doesn't view this all as fishy and strange.

Hesitantly, Gabriel asks, "It's just helping her with an essay?"

Lucifer nods. "But you don't have to if you're busy. Ain't forcing you to give up a few hours on Saturday for this."

Frowning, Gabriel thinks over the situation. It's not like he has any plans anyways for this weekend, nor does he expect to. As well, Gabriel had spent a whole five months listening to Lucifer bitch again and again about that one English teacher and had a pretty good idea just how much of a pain it was to have her as a teacher, especially if one wasn't exactly strong in English. At the same time though, this stinks of Lucifer's meddling, scheming plans. Gabriel sighs. Even if this is part of Luci's plan, it isn't like… wait.

If this is part of Lucifer's plan, some weird blind-date set-up, then he can easily derail it. Not like he plans to get together with the girl anyway. Gabriel's frown soon drops as the corners of his mouth curve upwards as he realizes he can have some fun with ruining all of his brother's plans and plots.

"I guess I'll help," he finally says in a tone that doesn't give away his sudden joy.

Lucifer flashes him a grin, clapping his hands and saying, "Perfect!"

Smiling, Gabriel leans back in his chair. _This is gonna be fun._

* * *

When the "not-date" meet-up actually happens, Gabriel gets a ride from Lucifer - another fishy clue; his brother rarely drove him anywhere - to his friend Oscar's house. The whole ride there, Lucifer is fairly quiet, the radio taking the place of conversation in the car and when they finally pull up to Oscar's house, Lucifer pulls over to the curb, looking at Gabriel.

"Remember. Don't do anything stupid."

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "You sound like Michael."

"Okay. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Lucifer corrects, and Gabriel laughs.

"Definitely leaving me a very small bracket to work with," he jokes, unclipping his seat belt and climbing out of the car. "Don't die."

His brother saluts him as Gabriel shuts the door before driving away at a speed he's certain is more than 10 over the limit. Gabriel then begins to make his way up the driveway to the doorway, knocking on the door.

_Please let this be one of Lucifer's more normal friends, _he prays, as it suddenly dawns on him this might be a mistake. His brother was known to have very… _unique _friends, which meant the afternoon could go hundreds of ways. But the Oscar who opens the door doesn't look like he's a pyromaniac or has a criminal record longer than Gabriel's arm so he's reassured slightly about the situation he's walked into. Instead, he reminds Gabriel of Michael, with the blue eyes and dark brown hair - although Michael's isn't curly - but the piercing on his ears and the way he carries himself just screams Lucifer's friend.

"You must be Gabriel, Lucifer's little bro?" Oscar leans against the door frame and Gabriel nods. "Cool. I'm Oz. My little sis is in the living room, just over there." At that, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder at an archway down the hall. Oz then moves away from the door, allowing Gabriel to come in and take off his shoes.

"Dot! Gabriel's here!" He yells and the girl, 'Dot' shouts back at him before appearing at the doorway to the living room.

She waves and Gabriel returns the friendly gesture. Dot then looks at her brother, who huffs, shutting the door and heading up the stairs to Gabriel's left. "Shout if you need me," he tells them over his shoulder, disappearing upstairs.

Gabriel, waiting awkwardly at the door for a moment, walks over to Dot who leads him to the living room, specifically the little area she's decided to work at. They end up sitting on the floor at a coffee table, where Dot's has the text they're reading (_The Chrysalids_ \- _yay_, incest and Christianity!), a bunch of pens and some paper. The living room itself is fairly simple, with a TV off against the wall opposite a window, a couple couches and grand piano in the far corner. Not too clean that it felt unnatural or unwelcoming. It was homey, for lack of better words, with a few family photos decorating the walls, worn carpet underneath him and the type of mess that existed with other people living in a place.

"I'm Dorothy," the girl across from him says, and Gabriel stops looking around the room to stare at her. "Thanks for coming to help. You really didn't have to, you know," Dorothy adds and Gabriel gives a shrug.

"It's fine, honestly. I've heard she's a tough teacher."

Dorothy snorts. "You have no idea. God, I _wish_ I had known earlier but Oz and a few of his other friends didn't have her so I couldn't somehow switch to Machado's class." She fidgets with the paper in front of her, reaching for a pen. "Honestly, I don't mind her as a teacher. She's definitely not the worst out there but she's so specific with what she wants and keeps scrapping my thesis statement."

Gabriel offers her a sympathetic look. "Where you able to kinda map out the rest of your essay? Sometimes I find that helps me make up one," he explains and Dorothy hands him over a lined piece of paper with some writing.

"Yeah. My thesis just sounds like shit compared to the rest of it."

Skimming it over quickly, Gabriel looks back up at Dorothy. "Well I'm no expert at thesises? Thesi? Whatever, it doesn't matter. But I am quite the bullshitter so I'm sure we can make a decent one up and then I can help you check over your points."

He receives a grin from Dorothy. "Sweet."

"So!" Gabriel claps his hands together. "Tell me about your essay topic."

* * *

They end up spending the next two hours going over Dorothy's essay points, cutting out the ones that are either too vague to fit her general topic or restructuring others to makes them stronger as well as arguing about certain characters and their decisions.

("I'm telling you. What is with teachers and choosing weird books? I mean, _The Chrysalids?_ Why couldn't we just read _To Kill A Mockingbird?"_

"Dude if you think it's weird now, wait until you hear what my brother Michael has to read. Four words: _Kafka on the Shore."_)

The actual thesis doesn't come into existence until Dorothy's halfway through typing the first draft of the essay, to which her fingers stop, hovering over the keys while she exclaims, "I have it! Oh shit" and then frantically beginning to type. It takes a bit of back and forth of throwing words, adding some, removing others with Gabriel now moving to leans over her shoulder to read it on the laptop screen. It goes through ten minutes of editing and rewording before Dorothy finds it good enough and saves the document.

"Thank you, Gabriel!" She has a grin on her face as she moves the laptop to the side. "You really helped a ton. This is definitely gonna be an eighty, maybe higher."

"Anytime, Dorothy."

After that, they end up swapping numbers, with Dorothy saying how she'll finish the rest later and then send him a copy to look over. As Lucifer's car pulls up outside the house, the two abandon their work at the coffee table with Dorothy walking him to the door.

"Is it cool if I text you whenever I need help again in English?" She asks as he puts on his shoes.

"Yeah, of course!"

Gabriel genuinely had a fun time hanging out with Dorothy and helping her on her essay and despite his hesitance earlier about it all, didn't regret spending the afternoon at her house.

Lucifer blares the car horn outside and the sound makes Dorothy jump - Gabriel himself might've too had he not be used to Lucifer's impatient nature. Also the fact Lucifer did this all the time, everywhere when waiting for Gabriel - while Gabriel just rolls his eyes.

"He really impatient too?"

Gabriel nods. "Unfortunately."

The car horn goes off again as Gabriel opens the door and flips his brother off from the doorway. Then, looking back at Dorothy to ignore his brother returning the gesture says, "Hey. You have first lunch or second lunch?"

"Uh, first."

"If you ever want to sit with my friends and me during lunch, you're more than welcome," he tells her, not wanting their potential friendship to fizzle out as nothing beyond acquaintances.

"Thanks!"

The horn goes off once more and Gabriel huffs in frustration. "Gotta go before Lucifer decides to drive off and make me walk or get payback for me making him wait for—" looking down at his phone, Gabriel checked the time, "— three minutes. See ya at school."

He then slips out the door and starts making his way to Lucifer's car. Before even getting into the car, Gabriel already can see Lucifer's knowing smirk.

But his brother doesn't say anything immediately, choosing to drive away in silence. The silence bothers Gabriel, who knows Lucifer is itching to say something, or maybe tease him about how long he was taking and the lack of response doesn't reassure him at all. In fact, it makes Gabriel antsy. _Just ask it already!_ He wants to shout at his brother, breaking the silence between them but doesn't, sitting there quietly.

Eventually, just as they arrive back home, Lucifer talks. "Whenever you wanna visit your girlfriend, just let me know and I'll give you a ride."

"She's not my girlfriend, Luci," Gabriel shoots back without hesitation and that only adds to the amused and knowing look Lucifer has on his face. He pretends to be annoyed, knowing Lucifer will eat it up, and oh how his brother does. Truthfully, Gabriel doesn't understand how Lucifer thinks that guys can immediately meet someone of the oppose sex and just assume they can't be friends. _Kinda stupid, really_, Gabriel thinks.

"Sure. That's what they all say at first, Gabe."

And with that, he exits the car, leaving Gabriel behind. That's when Gabriel drops the annoyed expression, laughing. _God, if this is what his brother has planned to win the bet… man, Gabriel almost pities him. Almost. Doesn't mean Gabriel's gonna come clean about everything. _

* * *

Gabriel and Dorothy do end up meeting up again a couple more times in the next two months before Christmas Break. It's mainly to help her with English class problems - not that Lucifer believes that when Gabriel tells him. Instead, Lucifer is stuck on the idea that Gabriel is starting to fall in love with Dorothy, equating their budding friendship for something more romantic. And, when he learned that after the third meet up, Dorothy had begun hanging out with them, Gabriel watched the giddy expression his brother had to grow.

"You've been spending a lot of time with Dorothy," Lucifer comments one day, seemingly out of the blue when Gabriel enters the kitchen to grab snacks for the movie night he's going to have with his friends.

Caught a bit off guard, Gabriel says, "Uh...yeah?" It comes out more as a question, which in Gabriel's defense, he wasn't ready to play TwentyQ with his big brother in a kitchen at almost eight o'clock at night on a Friday.

"You invited her to your movie night?"

"Yeah, of course. I always do this with my friends and she's my friend?" Moving past Lucifer, Gabriel opens the cupboard, peering in to look for the chips. He had bought some earlier and had placed them in the cupboard but knowing his brothers, there was the possibility that they had already been eaten. "Why you so curious, Luce?" Gabriel asks, trying to sound oblivious. He knows this is Lucifer trying to be subtle - and failing at it - about asking Gabriel if he has a crush on Dorothy (or possibly, any other girl) without being blunt about it.

"Oh, no reason. Just curious about how my baby brother is doing."

_Bullshit._

Gabriel doesn't say that though, giving a hum as he shifts through the cereal boxes before pulling out a bag of regular Doritos and some Ruffles. Tossing them onto the counter beside the cupboard, he continues looking for the popcorn.

Lucifer is quiet right now, and Gabriel pulls his head out of the cupboard to look at him. "She's not my girlfriend, Lucifer," he says, because that's one hundred percent the question that's lingering on his brother's tongue. Or the gist of it.

His brother gives a shocked expression that looks way too theatrical to be real and puts a hand over his heart. "Gabriel!" Lucifer gasps, sounding scandalized. "I was never going to ask that, I'll have you know!"

Raphael chooses that moment enter the kitchen from the back door. Catching just the last of what Lucifer said and also Gabriel's eye roll, says, "Why are you so focused on getting Gabriel a girlfriend? It's kinda sad."

Their cousin, Balthazar, who had been outside with Raphael lets out a laugh. Even Gabriel snorts while Lucifer tries to play it off as if he has no clue what Raphael is getting at.

"If you're that lonely that you need to get Gabriel a girlfriend, then maybe you should get one yourself rather than bug him about not having one," Balthazar chimes in, getting a glare from Lucifer.

"Ha, ha, well aren't the two of you just comedians," Lucifer deadpans which only makes Balthazar and Gabriel burst into laughter. Knowing he can't get anywhere else with the conversation, Lucifer leans against the counter with a huff while Raphael, shaking his head, leaves.

Gabriel too, after finding a bag of popcorn, leaves with all his snacks in his arms to finish setting up for movie night.

He's well aware this isn't going to be the end of Lucifer's questions and prodding. Just because Balthazar and Raphael teased him about it means honestly very little to his older brother. Instead of mentioning it out loud, Lucifer will do it in private without others able to listen in. (Which also includes Gabriel receiving suggestive looks when he walks into the kitchen during the movie night from his brother and Gabriel in return saying, "Don't you have any friends to bother?" in response to the looks.)

The teasing continues through the rest of the school year, much to Gabriel's annoyance. It dies down for the rest of the weekend, during their movie night get-together - which, if he is being honest, isn't all that helpful. Gabriel hardly spends much time with his brother for that whole weekend, as with him spending time with his friends and Lucifer out of the house. There's no mocking or suggestive looks/hints/eyebrow wiggles that were difficult to ignore even by the best, but it means very little in comparison to the rest of the school year. Roughly five years, give or take a few days - but fires back up first thing Monday morning. And continues to do so, right into the rest of the week, bleeding then afterwards into the next week, and then the next month, and then the one right afterwards.

It drags forth, in more ways than just that of verbal, with actions and snide comments and pestering. In all honesty, Gabriel's kind of sick of it.

No, he's absolutely sick of it.

It's different from the rest of the dares that Gabriel had dealt with in the past, and can't help but moaning about his suffering to his friends at lunch.

"Why don't you just do something back at him?" Charlie suggested. She takes a sip of her drink, looking innocently at Gabriel, and not like she had already planned three different plans to suggest that could be acted out on Gabriel's older brother.

Gabriel doesn't buy her look of innocence. "Like what?" he still asks anyways.

"What about we make him a fake Tinder account? Set him up with all these girls?" she suggests. "It's clear he's trying to do something of the sort to you, so why not try it back?"

"You mean, like, fight fire with fire?" Gabriel asks, and she nods. "Maybe. That does sound like it'd be pretty fun, but not yet. At least. I feel like if we did that, right now at least, it would bother him, but he'd instead revel in the attention from others. We need something else, something that will string him along, convincing him he's winning while at the same time, providing entertainment for us as well - it can't be something he gets to benefit from."

Jess, who had been receiving help from Dorothy about a particular math question, speaks up. "What if you lied to Lucifer instead?"

He looks over at her. "Lied, how?"

That piqued his interest. Of all his potential plans that were swirling around his head, and potentially even the ones within Charlie's brain, none of them even suggested lying to Lucifer. Rather, they all involved tricking him in one way or another, but nothing straight out as _lying _to his brother.

"Lie that you have this crush on a girl in our class or something. If he asks about her, make-up that you have a date with her," Jess explains.

"So we just make up a random girl, have Gabriel make up a few dates with her, we tease and gush about her, and Lucifer, if he's really that stupid, he'll go along with the whole thing."

It's actually a pretty ingenious plan, and has the potential to not only knock off Lucifer's constant pestering and remarks that Gabriel has been dealing with in the last few weeks, but also reduce the amount of awkward dates his brother might try to involve him in. After all, Gabriel can't exactly go on tons of dates and potentially get a girlfriend from one of them if he already has his eyes on someone.

It would be a bit tricky, since Gabriel has never actual experienced a crush before (he thought nothing much of it, for the most part at least, as he was still rather young - at least in his opinion, although this could be rather subjective, depending on who you asked. Others would say it was a perfectly acceptable age to start having crushes, while others might point out it was a bit odd that he hadn't yet had at least one, even a fleeting one in primary school or earlier before that - but, quick online research and an odd quiz for fun online suggested that it wasn't quite that of the ordinary and fell under the label of _aromanticism, _which also was possible and explained quite a lot about Gabriel) but he figures he can pretend, at least somewhat, and convince Lucifer he actually likes this one girl. Besides, the girl would never exist in the first place, meaning he has more room to be a bit theatrical and creative.

Regardless, it didn't discourage him from Jess' suggestion, and instead he could picture it actually happening.

"That could just work," Gabriel tells her. "And can you imagine how he'd act if it was successful? It'd be amazing!"

Gabriel chuckles imagining Lucifer's face in the end, not only when he ended up winning, but also when Lucifer realized he had been strung along to think he had the upper hand in all of this. _It'd be just too good._

"You'd just need to make sure you have a decent story and prevent any inconsistency or bits that contradict each other," Dorothy points out and they all nod in agreement. "Maybe if we all created the story together, then there would be less room for error or mix-ups, right? Because if he asked us any questions and we said something not quite like how you said it, he might get suspicious, and if Lucifer's paying enough attention, the whole thing might unravel prematurely."

"Good point. Okay, so I say we make this girl up now, but save her until he gets really annoying. No point whipping out the big guns early."

Jess flips to the back of her math notebook, which has, up until this point, sat abandoned as she had focused instead on their conversation. Grabbing her pencil, she looks at the rest of their group at the table. "Sounds good. So, name first or physical characteristics?" she asks out loud, not towards one particular person.

"Probably physical characteristics. Then, we can name her. Or, if we still have trouble," Charlie began, "we do what my parents did: take two different names from literature and put them together."

Jess nods, and writes "**NAME**" at the top of the paper, leaving some space before skipping down two lines in the notebook, then writing "**HAIR COLOUR"**.

The way she's planning it reminds Gabriel far too much like the way you would create characters for an RPG game or online. He's all too eager to start this, and rubbing his two hands together, he leans in and gets ready to start.

"Anyone we particularly trying to base your new crush after?" Jess asks.

Gabriel shakes his head. He grins widely. "Nah. Go wild."

* * *

They do end up creating Gabriel's "crush", who has a fairly common and easy-to-remember name of Sarah. It took a bit of convincing Charlie not to give her dyed hair of any bright colours - "Lucifer would definitely look for a girl with purple hair, Charlie. We need her to be like any other girl." - but after some huffing from her, she had agreed to a brunette. The rest of Sarah had come rather easily, with no features that stood out in a crowd or made her extremely distinguishable from anyone else at Gabriel's school.

The perfect non-existent person.

Sarah however doesn't actually make an appearance for the rest of the school, as, after she's made, she's placed on the back burner for the time being since Thanksgiving slinks forth. Then, after that, Christmas takes its place, and the fall days bleed into cold winter days, trees bare of the fiery colours of fall. The moment that happens, all of their teachers appear to decide December as the month of assignments and ISUs, assigning essays due before Christmas break and talking about exams coming at the end of January and things pick up quickly.

So essays are finished, tests are completed as the cold creeps in, and Gabriel and his friends are more focused on their long trek through the snow to school. Gabriel's focused on avoiding icy patches, not his brother's taunts and even Lucifer takes a few steps back, letting his brother have some space to breathe for the next two months before picking up his pestering. The older Novak child understands the struggles of exam season, and the weeks that lead up to it, and so he leaves Gabriel be - whether this is of his own choice, or from some choice words courtesy of Michael, Gabriel can't say, but he doesn't bother to investigate further.

When the last day of school before the two weeks of winter break begins, Gabriel and his friends can only focus on their fleeting break that doesn't even promise no work, not Gabriel's bet with his brother or Sarah. So both become forgotten, pushed to the backs of their minds as they celebrate the holidays and when school starts back up again, it's exam season.

It's study, review, finish the next unit, repeat. Over and over for another week and a half, then it's ISU presentations and course reviewing, looking over all the units and lessons and practising for the exams at the end of January. The blur of time passes over Gabriel, and before he knows it, second semester starts, and the four of them have new classes, new teachers - minus Gabriel having his art teacher as his religion teacher as well, which was honestly both helpful as she already enjoyed him as a student and knew he was a hard worker, but also gave him some room to not need to try really hard to impress her - and things breeze by. Lucifer starts his now normal spiel around the middle of February and Gabriel laughs it off, playing along with his brother but never giving away the ace up his sleeve.

* * *

As the school year creeps to an end, Gabriel finds himself grinning, despite the exams, every time he saw his older brother. "Looks like I might win, Luce," he'll say, teasing his brother each time they passed (whether it be in the kitchen, or in the halls at school), to which Lucifer would scoff.

"So you think, Gabe. Remember the year's technically not up yet. We're going through summer," he'd point out but Gabriel would laugh.

And, on the day of the last exam in June, Gabriel walks out of his science class and makes his way to his locker to clear out any junk still sitting in it. It's also the meeting point for him and his friends after the exams to go out and celebrate later afterwards. Reaching the locker at the same time as Jess - who's been in her science exam, although in another class - he waves at her, noticing her large grin.

"You fail?" he asks, pretending not to notice her grin and she drops it immediately, sniffling dramatically.

"_Oh absolutely_. I'm gonna have to run away and fake my name before the report comes out," she tells him, and Gabriel snorts, opening the locker.

Jess' parents are literally the opposite of the types of parents who threatened to disown their child if they got less than a ninety-nine on every single thing. They basically were only disappointed in her marks when they knew she didn't try at all (which never happens anyway) or if she left big assignments to start (key word: start) last minute. She can tell them she got an eighty on a test and they'd be happy for her.

"What a tragedy. I'll miss you," Gabriel tells her with an over the top sigh. "Will we still communicate via coded emails and flower language?"

"You better," Jess warns in a serious tone, trying to keep a straight face. But, as Gabriel turns to look at her, holding a few sheets of crumpled paper, she breaks out into a smile. "No, but seriously, it was such a good exam, especially considering what everyone else had said last semester about science. How about you?"

"Not too bad. It was mostly bio stuff - figures since our teacher normally teaches bio to the older grades - with a fair amount of chem. Almost nothing on circuits, thank god!"

Gabriel then pulls out his gym shoes from the top shelf of his locker, tossing them into his bag. "I mean, they weren't awful, but I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during some of those classes? At least a little bit?"

Jess nods. "Yeah. My teacher was basically like, 'We've got one week to learn about batteries so buckle up kids!'. I was impressed that we actually were even able to do the unit with how long we spent on bio and chem. Not that I care, because I am never gonna build batteries in my life," she adds the last part more as an afterthought.

He gives a hum in agreement, snagging the collection of pens at the back of his locker he finds underneath all the papers - _huh that's where they all went to. He could've sworn he had lost them but go figure, they had just been chilling here in his locker this whole time _\- before shutting the locker door and dumping the pens in his bag.

"So do you know how long it'll take Charlie to finish her exam? Dorothy said she'd meet us at the coffee shop because she didn't have an exam today-" Jess mutters under her breath about how lucky she is that she had gym and wishes she had gym second semester instead of science "-so we're only waiting on Charlie."

"I doubt she needs extra time. She has a religion exam," Jess says, stressing the fact that it's a religion exam. "If she walked into it without studying, you owe me a muffin."

"Doesn't she have the highest mark in the class?"

"Yup. A ninety-nine. The teacher didn't give her perfect on, like, one assignment so she's not perfect. Everyone thinks she's some super religious child." Jess giggles, adding, "She told me they think she reads the bible in her free-time."

That causes Gabriel to laugh too because Charlie had probably never picked up a bible before ninth grade religion. It's all due to that one TV show she liked, Lucifer. Well, that and one book series she had found in the discount bin at the bookstore which, while looking like a trashy romance novel on the front cover, wasn't actually completely awful (there's also another book with religious tones he had made her read a little while back. Gabriel can't quite remember the title of it, but it involves an angel and demon who weren't exactly the most competent beings and instead of trying to fix things, ended up losing the key to stopping the apocalypse).

"Guess who's finished bitches!" Charlie says, way too loud as she rounds the corner and the hall monitor down the hallway glares at them. Charlie, noticing this, flashes an awkward smile before picking up her pace to get to her friends. "That was the easiest test I never studied for," this time, she speaks in a much lower voice.

"Told ya," Jess murmurs. "You owe me a muffin."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. So, let's go before we get yelled at. I'd rather not stick around longer than I have too," Gabriel says and the two nod. The trio leave Gabriel's now empty locker, walking down the hallway in the same direction Charlie had come from to the coffee shop where Dorothy is waiting.

"Looks like you got one year down, Gabe," Charlie eventually says out of the blue as they exit the school.

Glancing at Charlie, he gives her a confused look for a moment, trying to understand what she's talking about before Gabriel realizes Charlie's referring to the bet.

He then nods. "Yeah. I've been bugging Luci about it all week. The poor guy thinks he's actually gonna get the fifty bucks from me," Gabriel tells them. "He was pretty tame this year, although he might be planning something big for tenth grade. Who knows?"

"I'm still waiting for the blind date he'll probably send you on," Jess says and Charlie chimes in, in agreement. "It's definitely gonna happen before you graduate. Just you wait, dude. Lucifer's gonna play dirty twelfth grade."

"Oh, a hundred percent. When he gets desperate, very little is off limits," Gabriel admits, and it's true. He's seen the lengths his brother will go to win a dare, his pride overshadowing his dignity - which, honestly at this point had to be non-existent with the amount of shit he had done in the past. "I'm just amazed he only got banned from our nearby Dollarama. You'd think he'd have a list somewhere miles long."

"How'd he manage that again?" Jess asks, looking over at Gabriel. The story sounds vaguely familiar, but she can't remember if Gabriel ever told her the exact reasoning behind the official "ban", only that Lucifer hadn't gone to jail for it, ruling out breaking and entering, arson, etc. So, he had to have been more creative in his actions. (And, knowing the employees at that particular store they didn't give a shit half the time so it had to be an impressive feat to get kicked out and told, 'don't ever come back again' by security.)

Gabriel shrugs. "He was never specific about it. The reasoning seems to change from time to time whenever he retells the story. All I know is that it's been at least four years and they haven't forgotten him nor lifted the ban, even with a bunch of new employees working there."

The rest of the walk to the coffee shop isn't too long, especially with it not been extremely hot or humid outside. The weather had for once this whole week decided to not be difficult with them. Still, despite it not being 'melt-the-skin-off-your-bones' hot, the air conditioning in the coffee shop is a nice welcoming feel.

"Dorothy said she saved us a seat," Charlie says as the door closes behind them, looking down at the messages on her phone. She sends a text back to the girl, and after a moment, the phone buzzes. "Says it's near the back, by the window over..." She trails off, scanning the store layout before pointing at the far corner. "There!"

The other two follow her pointing to the table and see Dorothy waving eagerly to make sure they catch her. The trio walks over to the table, slipping into the chairs with Charlie right beside Dorothy, Jess across from her and Gabriel taking a seat beside Jess.

"You guys finally free?" she asks the moment they sat down and all three nod.

"It was super easy, but I'm still jealous you got the gym exam done last week," Jess tells her with a pout.

"You had drama last semester," Dorothy points out in return. "Didn't you have an earlier exam too?"

Jess opens her mouth to argue but realizes she's right and just gives a playful huff. "Whatever."

"So!" Gabriel claps his hands, getting the three girls' attention. "What we all drinking?"

"Depends." Charlie leans in closer, grinning. "You gonna pay for me?"

"Pay for yourself, Charls."

She kicks him under the table, and he kicks her right back. "Ow. Rude."

Gabriel sticks his tongue out at her in retaliation.

"You guys are both children," Dorothy says. "I'm going to get a drink. Jess, you wanna come and leave these kids alone?"

Jess nods, getting up from her chair and as she passes Gabriel's chair, bumping it with a grin. "C'mon. I want my chocolate muffin," she tells him as she slips past, not waiting for Gabriel's response.

Rolling his eyes playfully, Gabriel follows her, leaving Charlie to sit at their table and guard their bags. "Get me an iced lemonade!" she shouts after them with a grin on her face as they head to the counter.

They all end up ordering their drinks individually, with Gabriel getting Jess' muffin and Dorothy buying Charlie's iced lemonade, knowing the red-head will pay her back later. After the three get their drinks and make their way back to the table, Charlie takes her lemonade and raises it in the air.

"A toast. To surviving one year of high school and to only three more left."

The others follow in suit, as silly as it is, raising their drinks.

"To three more years," Gabriel echoes, from his seat, tapping his _Creamy Chocolate Chill_ against Charlie's drink. And to three more years before he wins his bet.

* * *

When he gets home later, he catches his brother sprawled out on the couch watching old TV show reruns and purposely slams the door closed (Michael will probably yell at him about doing that, again, but ah well. Sometimes Gabriel just likes to be dramatic and make an entrance) to get his brother's attention. It works, as Lucifer turns his head slightly to better face his younger brother.

"Guess what day it is, Luce."

"Really, Gabriel?" he says, giving his brother a look but Gabriel ignores it, choosing to keep taunting and teasing his brother. "I'm trying to watch—" Lucifer pauses, leaning far to the side to try and see which show was actually on the tv behind Gabriel before finishing the sentence lamely with "TV", having no clue what show was on.

"C'mon, guess," Gabriel presses.

"Gabriel—"

"Fine," Gabriel says with a huff, leaving his spot in front of the TV to collapse onto the couch, and conveniently, right on top of his brother's legs.

"Let off." Lucifer twists, trying to kick his brother off by Gabriel allows himself to go limp, making it too difficult for Lucifer to do. "You're an asshole, you know that?"

Gabriel shrugs. "You weren't guessing," he says in a petulant tone, sounding like a child.

"_God_…" Lucifer huffs. "_Fine_. If I guess, will you get off my legs?"

The younger of the two breaks out into a cheeky grin. "Maybe."

It's a half-assed answer that both know means "no," but Lucifer asks anyways and Gabriel perks up. "It's the last day of ninth grade. So I've survived one whole year and still no girlfriend. Meaning, I only got three years left and then I win the fifty bucks."

Lucifer scoffs, and pushes Gabriel off the couch, wiping the smirk from his brother's face. "Yeah right. Just because you don't have a girlfriend now, doesn't mean that'll stay the same by grad. Things change."

"You keep telling yourself that," Gabriel says from the floor where he lays, not bothering to get up.


	2. Grade 10

**No major warnings for this chapter. Gabriel's friend group grows more, we have some awkward dates and Gabriel tries to get revenge on his brother only for it to backfire.**

**Eve is based on Inbar Lavi's Eve from the tv series, _Lucifer,_ as I love her Eve far more than the one from season six.**

**Also watch me flex on what I remember from grade ten math (well it's technically mixed with stuff from grade 12 calc but whatever). Enjoy!**

* * *

Like last time, summer seems to pass too quickly for Gabriel. They both agree to allow the bet to carry over into the summer, but Gabriel, who spends the days out with his friends, going swimming or to the amusement park to ride roller coasters and eat funnel cake until they feel like puking, notices how Lucifer doesn't seem to even bring up the dare, at least not the way he had been during the school year. It appears that all the teasing and comments have been dropped - at least so far. There's no telling if Lucifer will start up again in August, taking only a break - and Gabriel doesn't know how to feel about all of it. On one hand, he doesn't mind it, but he also fears Jess might be right about what she said back in June about him planning something way over the top.

For Gabriel to say though that tenth grade ultimately starts as anticlimactic as the last year would be mostly the truth, as boring as that may be. It somehow carries the same uneventfulness that the beginning of ninth grade had - with Gabriel and his friends sitting around the cafeteria table, all waiting for the bell to ring, signalling that they could begin heading to their first period classes. The only major change, beyond the new schedule and locker change (as was expected every year so not a surprise, just expected to happen), is the inclusion of Dorothy into their friend group. She so seamlessly has been sown into it, that, upon those having none the trio from before high school, they wouldn't be able to know how she had only recently gotten to know the others and hadn't been a lifelong friend that had been with Gabriel, Charlie and Jess since practically diapers (which they all dub is the "beginning" of their group, however it can't be proven as all have slightly different stories as to how they became friends that it's become a running joke when asked how the three met, each come up with even wilder stories than before).

Tenth Grade starts off prior to Gabriel actually entering his high school, with him coming down the stairs, still blinking away the sleep from his eyes, yawning. It then leads to Gabriel sitting at the kitchen table, eating the biggest bowl of sugary cereal, if not just to annoy his older brother, Raphael, who had walked in almost immediately after Gabriel open the cupboard for cereal, but also to help keep himself from falling asleep at school. From there, perhaps out of pity at Gabriel's tired state (he doubts this, but lets himself dream it and not that Raphael's decided right now to start being more conscientious about his carbon footprint. Or worse, his brother had decided to show off how he had, over the summer finally got his driver's license and now could drive whomever or wherever he wanted, anytime) Raphael gives Gabriel a ride to school with him.

It's a relatively short ride from their house to the school - although Gabriel isn't complaining as he'd rather this, being in a near silent car with Raphael, music playing so faintly in the background Gabriel couldn't even discern what it was (though most likely something that either written back in like the 1600's or is so underground you can hear worms in the background), as it beats both taking the bus and last years drive with Lucifer where his brother turned a fifteen minute drive into five - but that doesn't stop Gabriel from closing his eyes, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep. Gabriel doesn't end up waking with the start when they get to the parking lot, pulling into an empty space near the football field and back fence. Rather than being jerked forwards by the quick stepping onto the breaks, resulting into a slamming into the dashboard if unlucky, Raphael nudges him away.

"Hmm?" Gabriel mumbles, before yawning.

'We're here," is all Raphael says, taking the keys out of the ignition and climbing out.

Gabriel follows suit, climbing out at a much slower pace, still yawning as the two part ways, and next thing Gabriel knows for certain is he's seated in the cafeteria at their table_, _somewhat ready to start the second year of high school.

"So, you're saying he hasn't even texted you to suggest anything?" Dorothy asks as they were all seated at their table, with three minutes before the warning bell goes off.

Not long after Dorothy had been officially part of their group they had explained to her the bet - which, years later, would be dubbed the Legendary Bet by Charlie and only that by anyone who retold the story outside their friendship. As of right now, however, it lacks the special emphasis as it has yet to produce a surefire winner and loser as well as substantially worthy of such a title - letting her in on how Lucifer and her brother had tried at first to set her up with Gabriel only for it to backfire (she has no hard feelings but had thought it to be hilarious, laughing at it instead).

Gabriel shakes his head. "Nothing. Which, I want to say is concerning but at the same time last year he had been fairly quiet," he admits to his friends. "So it's not really been bothering me too much."

Charlie looked up from her phone at him, raising one brow and looking ready to counter Gabriel's words but he continued:

"Plus, he doesn't have classes until Thursday so knowing that, he's probably not even up yet."

Charlie nods, giving a hum in agreement. That's definitely a much better explanation as to Lucifer's radio silence in all this. "Sounds like your brother."

The others nod along.

Lucifer, if given the chance, Gabriel could easily say that his brother wouldn't be up before noon, even on the days where he hadn't gone to be at ridiculous times in the morning.

"Either way, you still seem quite calm about all this," Jess says as she stands up, ready to leave for class. "Aren't you even the slightest bit scared? I know it might sound annoying and repetitive, but this is _Lucifer _were talking about. Dude has literally no limit to what he might do."

He shrugs. She has a point. Lucifer, in all honesty, is what you might dub as 'chaotic lawful' - he has morals but only he knew them and everyone else is faced with the challenge to try and guess them each time. (Gabriel likens it to the one quote from the book Charlie had made him read back in ninth grade, where it was like everyone else was playing some complex game of poker, in a dark room where Lucifer, the dealer, was constantly shuffling and dealing cards without telling you the rules, and who _smiles all the time_). Still, knowing this, Gabriel doesn't feel the burning need to glance over his shoulder at every chance, nor tread lightly with unease, palms sweaty as his imagination runs wild with all the possibilities he might face.

"I'm just certain I won't lose. Can't be afraid of what he might do if I know it'll do nothing," he states, completely honest.

A voice comes on the P.A system, notifying all the students that they have five minutes to get to class before announcements start, so reluctantly, the friends are forced to go their separate ways to their period one classes.

"Text the group chat when you guys find out what lunches you have," Charlie says, calling it out over her shoulder as she hurries to get through the crowd to the other side of the building for science.

Dorothy gives her a two fingered salute before leaving the rest of the way and Gabriel gives her and Jess a quick wave goodbye, slipping away to the main stairwell at the front entrance to the school to get upstairs for his civics class. He hopes none of them have second lunch this year, or at least this semester, but knowing the chances are slim, it turns to hoping at least one of his other friends will have the same lunch as him. Arriving at his civics class in the geography hallway after being nearly elbowed by an over enthusiastic kid in front of him talking to his friend while going up the stairs, Gabriel finds himself waiting awkwardly at the locked door along with a few other kids while other students stream past, their pace quickening at the announcement warning of two minutes left.

_Alright, _he thinks, as the anthem plays, then finishing, and then it gets halfway through the announcements before the teacher arrives to unlock the door. _This'll definitely be an interesting year. _

He grabs a seat near the back, recognizing a few of the familiar faces from classes last year and a few new ones as well.

_One year down, three to go. This'll be easy._

* * *

It is not that easy. Or at least, not in the way Gabriel thought. He's sure his biggest challenge is avoiding Lucifer's god awful "not-actually-dates-although-they-are" dates but he was wrong, not accounting for other people and Gabriel's inability to recognize flirting from friendliness.

It starts off as a misunderstanding on Gabriel's part. He swears upon his grandmother's grave it was! It wasn't a ploy by Lucifer to trick him, it wasn't a set up or some prank but Gabriel mistaking the flirting for something, well, less than romantic. (And he's certain anyone who had listened to their conversation had probably assumed Gabriel was aware of the situation he got himself into - which he hadn't!)

Backtracking to Thursday afternoon, period 3 math class, Gabriel had found himself staring up at the clock on the right wall, just above the door. The teacher was droning on about something in the background, and absentmindedly, Gabriel was copying whatever she wrote down on the chalkboard to his paper, but that was the extent of his focus. Instead, he was more excited for art class next.

_Fifteen minutes left, _he realized with a sigh. It was going to be a long fifteen minutes, especially at the rate his teacher was going.

Looking away from the clock, Gabriel glanced back at the board, copying whatever numbers the teacher added while having no clue how she got them. _Ah well, I'll ask Raphael later to explain this. _

His partner - as like last year, the teacher had seated all the students in the class in pairs of desks in rows in the class - tapped his arm with a pencil, getting his attention (not that that was very difficult to do to Gabriel right now).

"Do you understand a word she's saying?" his partner whispered softly, as not to alert their teacher - Gabriel didn't actually know their name, despite sitting beside this person for almost two weeks, but in his defense, how was Gabriel supposed to focus on anything in math class when it was literally the most boring subject out there. He barely even remembered what the teacher taught yesterday, remembering the names of his classmates was expected to happen during Gabriel's brain's seventy-five minute shut-down period.

Gabriel shook his head. "Nope. I stopped paying attention at least twenty minutes ago?'

His partner nodded. "Same here." There's a pause, as both turn back to the board to copy what the teacher wrote before Gabriel heard them speak again. "I'm Adam, by the way," the boy who Gabriel now knew was Adam, said.

"Gabriel," he replied.

They go back to silence, for a bit, their conversation replaced with the scribbling of pencils on paper as they catch what the teacher was writing.

"Hey, I think I somewhat understand this lesson if it's still stumping you. If you're not busy right after fourth, I could go over it with you in the cafeteria," Adam offered as everyone started to put their things away.

It was only one minute to the bell and the teacher, having already finished the lesson, was now sitting at her desk, putting away her notes.

Gabriel thought over Adam's offer. He did plan to try and teach it to himself later when he got home, going to Raphael if he needed help understanding a particularly tricky concept of the lesson but having the offer of another student explain it, Gabriel thought, might actually make it easier to understand.

(Raphael isn't awful at explaining things. It's just, there are moments where Gabriel can understand why his brother is going into medicine, not teaching.)

He shrugged. "Sure, I'll meet you there two thirty?" It's not like he had any plans after school and if it went well, Gabriel wouldn't have to spend a long time trying to understand this lesson. "I have art last so I can snag us a spot," Gabriel added, and Adam smiled.

"Sounds perfect. I'll -" the bell rang at that moment, cutting him off. Adam gave a huff in annoyance, glaring up at the clock. When the ringing finally stopped, he continued. "I'll see you later then?"

Gabriel nodded, gathering the last of his things and shoving it, rather unceremoniously, into his backpack, not caring if all the papers didn't end up being folded. He then bid Adam goodbye and slipped out of the class with the rest of the eager-to-leave students into the crowded hall to get to fourth period.

Fourth period was relatively calm. They were continuing to work on still life, and Gabriel spent most of the class in the adjacent art room in the back with the overhead projectors, having traced his final approved thumbnail onto overhead paper and now projecting it onto the canvas to redraw (it made it easier ultimately for him to have the proportions and placements he generally wanted without constant erasing and redrawing and would allow for more time painting). Afterwards, when he had finished tracing it, he spent the time gathering all the necessary colours of paint he needed - thank God this art teacher actually gave them the good paints, not the watery shit they had last year that made it impossible to get good, clean colours and a nice glossy finish when dried - in his tray to start with the background today, and rest tomorrow.

Unlike the agonizingly slow pace of math class, art passed far too quickly for Gabriel, with the ringing bell catching him off guard. He, rather begrudgingly, washed off his brushes, dumping the dirty water and then wrapped up his paint tray to preserve the paints still on it, putting then both that and the canvas away before snagging his sketchbook with still paint covered fingers - he didn't bother washing his hands because one: it took too much effort and he could just do that later, and two: it looked cool, the mix of blacks and Maroons and greens all splattered over his hands and arms - and tucked his paintbrush behind his ear to dry before rushing to the cafeteria to meet with Adam.

He arrived at the cafeteria with little trouble, avoiding the science hallway and instead cutting down the hallway near the gym, slipping through the doors into the cafeteria and scanning the open area to check if Adam had already got there. Not seeing the boy, Gabriel began to walk towards the nearest empty table, finding the cafeteria relatively empty for a Thursday at about 2:40pm. Sitting down, Gabriel pulled out his math notes before turning to his phone to kill time while waiting for Adam to show up so they can start.

It took roughly ten minutes and two games of Candy Crush before Adam showed up, panting slightly with an apologetic look.

"Sorry, my science teacher wanted to finish the lesson and then I had to get through the science hallway to get here," he explained as he took a seat across from Gabriel. "I swear they need to make that hallway wider. There's too many fucking students trying to get out of that hallway you literally can't move at all!"

"Yeah. I was going to go down that way then looked at the literal sea of people and took the other hallway down towards the small gym," Gabriel told Adam who nodded.

"Damn, that would've been a smarter idea. So, math?"

He was pulling out his own notes, opening the binder and flipping to the pages they had received earlier in the day. Then, when he found the correct pages, Adam skimmed over them quickly, as if to refresh his brain of what they learned before explaining it to Gabriel. "Have you ever done trig before?" he asked Gabriel, who shook his head.

"The most I remember is one of my older brothers complaining about it, but that's about it. It's that triangle shit, right?"

Adam laughed. "Yeah, it's that triangle shit. So, basically what we went over today was building off the unit circle from yesterday - You remember that, right?" Adam looked over at him, and Gabriel gave a nod, flipping his notes back to yesterday's lesson, specifically the page with the large unit circle they had to fill in with the correct degrees and exact units.

"Okay, so we were going over the three special triangles, thirty degrees, sixty degrees and forty-five degrees," Adam continued, gesturing on his unit circle how he had done each of the triangles in a different colour to distinguish them from the rest. "These triangles are in each of the CAST quadrants, but right now we seem to be focusing on just those in the A quadrant because both sine and cosine are positive in that quadrant. So, for each of the triangles, you have to remember they have exact units for the cos and sine - the way I like to think of them is as the letters X, Y, and R, like the planes on the Cartesian plane. Does that make sense so far?" he asked Gabriel, who nodded slowly, processing what Adam just said.

It was a bit tricky, but he could see where they get the X,Y, and R from, and how each triangle had specific sine and cosine values in the unit circle.

"X is the X-plane and Y is the Y-plane, right?" Gabriel was a bit hesitant when saying this, doubting himself but Adam smiled brightly and nodded.

"Yeah. And the R value is the radius." Adam pointed his pencil at the part just below the smaller unit circle on the paper, where it talked about CAST and sine and cosine. "So, for sine, you can use opposite over hypotenuse, or, to make it simpler: y over r. So, for the forty-five degrees triangle, sine would be root two over 2," Adam said, while drawing a forty-five degree triangle, putting on the y side of the triangle "root two" and on the hypotenuse ''two". "This goes similarly with cosine, however, instead of y over r, its…" he trailed off, looking expectantly at Gabriel who replied, "X over r?"

"Exactly."

And that was how the rest of the time was spent, with Adam explaining carefully faster ways for Gabriel to memorize the three special triangles so he wouldn't be stuck when they got pop quizzes for it.

"And, when it comes to the sixty and thirty degree triangles, they use different exact numbers from the forty-five degrees one, however, they both share similar values, if that makes any sense."

Gabriel looked at him, a bit lost. Adam, who, at one point had come on the other side of the table to better explain to Gabriel about the triangles, pointed at the larger unit circle. "They're mirrored opposites of each other. For the sixty degrees triangle, it has a cos of root three over two and a sine of one half. That is flipped for thirty degrees, with the cos being one half and the sine being root three over two," he explained carefully. "I like to look at it like this, sixty degrees is larger than thirty right? Well it has to have the smaller fraction first, then the bigger one whereas the thirty is smaller so it has to have the larger fraction first, then the smaller. Whatever you'd logically think of, you do the opposite because that's math and it, despite being logical, likes to hate being logical."

The comment made Gabriel snort. He couldn't help but agree with Adam.

The explanation made some sense to Gabriel, and he began to pick up on how to remember the cosine and sine for each of the special triangles. Then, from there, they move the rest of the way through the unit circle with CAST, Adam breaking down each bit with little tricks and techniques that Gabriel understood much easier.

_Looking back on everything, Gabriel wonders if he somehow missed some signs that suggested Adam wasn't looking into just being friends. Yet, even going over the situation, both by himself and with his friends, he swears there wasn't anything he missed that shouted outright everything. _

Adam helped him until about four o'clock, to which, Gabriel, when glancing at his phone, realized how much time has passed and said, "Shit."

The other boy looked over at him, a bit puzzled.

"Sorry, I just...I didn't realize how much time had passed. We've been here for over an hour," he explained, and Adam's puzzled expression shifts to one of surprise.

"Oh, wow."

"Yeah. Look, I was going to stop by Tim's before leaving to catch the bus, how about I get you a drink? Or if you don't want that, like a cookie or something to say thanks for staying back to help me?" Gabriel offered, standing up and beginning to pack away his things. "It's the least I can do. I was completely lost before you started explaining all of this and I don't doubt that if I went home I would've still been hella lost, even after getting help from my brother."

"Sure," Adam said, a smile on his face. (_Was this one of the signs Gabriel missed? Didn't most people buy others things as a token of gratitude after they helped each other with something? Was this what Adam misinterpreted as interest on Gabriel's part? _That much Gabriel won't ever know, only assume at best._)_

He packed his things away rather quickly (not that Gabriel noticed the speed as particularly odd or unnatural), and grabbing his bag, followed Gabriel out of the school and across the street to the Tim Hortons.

"What other classes do you have this semester?" Gabriel asked, to strike up conversation, when they get close to Tim's.

"History, business, and science." Adam opened the door and held it for Gabriel, who thanked him, slipping past into the fairly busy coffee shop, lining up in the queue. "How about you?"

"Not as rough as your's, that's for sure. I've got art, religion, and civics and careers."

Adam gave a low whistle. "Lucky you."

"For now," Gabriel pointed out. "Next semester's gonna be the heavy one. I didn't quite luck out."

The conversation between them was light and easy as they make their way through the line, and it paused only briefly for Gabriel to order their drinks - raspberry lemonade for himself and an icecap for Adam - before continuing as they got their drinks, and even after they leave the shop to head towards the bus stop.

It was when they get to Gabriel's bus stop that things went downhill.

Adam thanked him again for the drink, and as they wait for the bus, Gabriel learned that Adam was actually heading the opposite way, meaning he has to get on the bus from the stop across the street from Gabriel's. That meant, that while they've been waiting for Gabriel's bus and watched the other go towards the station (opposite of Gabriel's direction), Adam essentially missed his bus waiting with Gabriel. Then, Adam, while the two are sitting on the bench at the stop, seemed to shift closer to him as time passed - both things are odd to Gabriel but Gabriel didn't pick up on them as being any big flags he should've reacted more to than just shrug them off.

But what really made Gabriel certain, what makes him realize the whole situation was read wrong, was when Adam turned to face him.

The blue-eyed boy had asked Gabriel, " Hey, do you happen to be busy tomorrow after school? We could always meet up again and I can help you as well with understand the lesson if you want."

"I'm actually busy tomorrow, sorry," Gabriel apologized, but Adam didn't seem deterred, offering Monday after school instead.

Something about it just seems odd now to Gabriel, especially when Adam kept talking but being slightly vague in what he said.

When the next bus that Adam should be on to go home passed by, Gabriel frowned. "Isn't that your bus?" he asked, cutting off Adam who looked ready to speak.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Then why are you waiting at this bus stop with me?" Gabriel meant it as nothing rude, only asking a confused and honest question, but it came out much harsher than he wanted and Gabriel winced. "Sorry. What I meant was, aren't you missing your bus by waiting with me for mine? You really don't have to keep missing your busses just to wait for me to get mine - you're gonna end up getting home super late," Gabriel told him.

Adam shrugged. "I don't mind, honestly. It's fun talking to you," he said honestly.

But Gabriel still didn't understand why Adam was waiting with him instead of catching his bus to go home. "Seriously though," Gabriel pushed and Adam seemed to shut him down, again assuring him that he doesn't mind and what's meant to not bug him only does so more. "Adam—"

The boy seemed to sigh, deflating slightly. "It seems like you're trying to get rid of me, Gabe."

(_Gabe. Was that another sign?)_

"I'm not, I just can't imagine why you wouldn't want to get away from school as soon as possible."

Gabriel felt like a broken record, trying to make the same argument over and over, and eventually, Adam relented.

"Okay. At least let me buy you a drink next week, some time when you're free," he reasoned and Gabriel waved him off, an easy smile on his face.

The tension in the air seems to fizz away, no longer awkward between them (or so Gabriel thinks. Looking back, he's probably very _very wrong_)

"Don't worry about that, you don't need to owe me anything. That's what friends do," he said casually to Adam, watching Adam suddenly frown.

"Friends?" he echoed, earning a nod from Gabriel. "Oh. I, uh…" he stammered and fiddled with his phone, looking down at his shoes.

Gabriel's smile began to fade as he turned to look at Adam properly. "Adam, what's wrong?" He didn't understand why the boy looked so upset. He had been much happier earlier, and now, at the simple mention of them being friends, it had changed his whole mood. Had...Had Gabriel been presumptuous in assuming they were friends? Or was it something else he had said that had rubbed Adam the wrong way and offended the boy? Gabriel didn't know.

Adam bit his lip, before he said in a soft voice, "I, um, well...I was going to ask before if you wanted to go on a date with me next week, or whenever you are free. I had thought, well, you see -" He fumbled and tripped over his words, sounding far too nervous but Gabriel hardly noticed.

His mind was still stuck on the word 'date'.

Somehow, he hadn't at all expected the conversation to go that way, and while he was sure Adam would be considered a fairly nice looking guy, there was no connection Gabriel had with him (or, he thinks, he might have with the guy, even if they were to go on a date). He saw Adam only as a friend, nothing more.

Gabriel's silence made Adam seem to shrink in further, and the boy, awkwardly sitting on the bench, grabbed his backpack at his feet and stood up. "I, uh, sorry I asked," he mumbled, taking Gabriel's silence as that of disgust at what Adam said.

He gets a few steps away before Gabriel's brain finally catches up on what just happened and he immediately jumps to his feet when it does."Adam, wait!" Gabriel called to him. "Look, I'm really sorry if I had given you the wrong signs, I just -" He cut himself off, when Adam shook his head, still refusing to look at him.

"It's fine, Gabriel. I should be going, my bus is gonna be here." He said this in a dismissive tone and Gabriel stopped him again before he left.

"Adam, please look at me," he begs, and Adam gives a sigh. For a moment, Gabriel thinks he's gonna start walking away again, but is surprised when he turns around and faces him.

Gabriel takes this as him willing to listen and so Gabriel continues. "I'm not turning you down because you're gay. Or bi or possibly pan. It's not because you like guys," he corrected, admitting this to Adam and hoping that that wasn't why Adam was so dejected. The last thing he wanted was Adam to think Gabriel didn't like him because he had something against guys who are attracted to other guys. "I'm just -" _asexual and maybe also aromantic so I'm not sexually or romantically attracted to anyone, it's not personal, _is what he wants to say. However, instead Gabriel goes with (the rather lame explanation of): " - not really interested in dating right now."

It's not quite a lie, and yet it's not the complete truth. What it is, however, is the best Gabriel can give him right now (at least comfortably) rather than trying to make something happen between the two of them. He couldn't do that to either himself or Adam, especially Adam as it wasn't fair for the boy to be strung along, thinking he had some chance with Gabriel when Gabriel in return couldn't offer anything beyond a close friendship.

His explanation doesn't lift the dejected look on Adam's face (although Gabriel figures nothing will at this point). "Oh, okay."

"We, we can still be friends thought, right?" Gabriel offered awkwardly, and Adam gave him a tight-lipped smile that suggested _no, they couldn't_.

"I guess," Adam said, before turning his back to Gabriel and walking away. He doesn't say anything else, and neither does Gabriel.

(Both, in the back of their minds know that they won't stay as friends after this. It'll be too awkward, and they hardly know each other enough to know how to look past that awkwardness and be okay with it. Still, Gabriel can play the fool and hope it might.)

There's isn't quite anything left to say and so, rather ungracefully, Gabriel plopped down on the bench. "Well fuck." He hoped that he wouldn't be put in anymore of these situations through the next two and a half years while the bet's still running, because Gabriel was gonna have a hard time in his classes if Lucifer causes more awkward "dates" for him to go on.

* * *

"I think I lost a friend I didn't even have in the first place," Gabriel says the Tuesday after That Day, when sitting down with the rest of his group for their civic's assignment. The other three people in his ground, glance over at him, but only one actually asks Gabriel what's wrong. The other two turn right back to their phones.

"That doesn't even make sense," Kevin, the only other boy in their group says to Gabriel, and yes, that's true but Gabriel doesn't care. And he tells Kevin just that.

The boy looks at him, moving the paper with the instructions for their assignment, and it seems like he knows they won't be touching it at any point in this class period. "What happened?"

"I was hanging out with someone I had only recently became friends with and they apparently misread my actions, or many I misread theirs and well, long story short, asked me out and I turned them down." Gabriel can talk about this all day, he had already filled in the rest of his friends about the situation, but unlike Kevin, he had actually told them who had asked him out. For Kevin though, since while knowing the boy from his science and geography class last year he wouldn't exactly call them friends, and therefore didn't want to say anything about Adam that might make Kevin think differently about the boy.

"Oh. That's a bit rough, man," Kevin says sympathetically, and Gabriel nods.

"And I don't think it helped when I suggested we could still be friends."

Kevin full on winces at that. "Yeah, no that definitely couldn't have helped," he agrees and Gabriel gives a huff.

"Thanks for the support," he grumbled sarcastically. "Really know how to cheer a guy up."

The other boy gives him a look that Gabriel pretends looks sympathetic but clearly isn't. "I'm just pointing out the facts, Gabriel," Kevin tells him. "I've also never known anyone who had a situation quite like yours so I don't exactly have an advice that might help," he adds. "Do you see this person often?"

Kevin doesn't comment on the lack of gender tied to this friend of Gabriel's and he's grateful for it. That doesn't stop Gabriel from being dramatic, though. He groans again, dropping his head into his hands.

"Every day in math."

It comes out rather muffled,. Kevin, who doesn't quite catch what Gabriel says, "I'm sorry?"

He ends up lifting his head, looking at Kevin. "They're in my math class. Third period," Gabriel repeats and that earns him another wince.

Kevin looks over at the two girls sitting in their group, to see if they have been paying attention at all to their conversation, but they're deep into their own conversation, chattering with one showing the other something on her phone, so he focuses back on Gabriel.

"Maybe things will get better between the two of you after some time?" Kevin suggests.

"God, I hope so." He pauses, and after realizing that they haven't done any work on their assignment, Gabriel decides to steer the conversation away from himself. "You wanna keep working on the assignment?"

"Sure."

* * *

Things don't quite improve between Gabriel and Adam, the awkwardness still like a wall between them almost thick enough to be choking. He's bummed that they don't end up going back to friends, or even becoming friends in the first place, and even if they didn't, Gabriel is certain that'd be better than the awkwardness between them.

"You were wrong."

Kevin looks up with a frown as Gabriel takes the seat right beside him. "Pardon? You have to be a bit more specific, I'm not wrong about a lot of things," he says.

"About my _friend _from math. Thing's are still really awkward between us and it's been a month."

"Oh." Kevin appears to be lost for words, unable to say anything beyond that.

Gabriel nods, pulling out his binder from his bag. The teacher isn't here yet, and they've still got a few minutes before the anthem starts so they have a few minutes to talk without any interruptions. "And I can't exactly switch seats because one: that'd make things even more awkward, especially at this rate, and two: my teacher isn't the type that just randomly does that so I'd need a good excuse for that to happen," he continues, looking over at Kevin.

"Dude, that really sucks. I'm sorry."

"I'll just have to deal with it, I guess." Gabriel sighs. "Lock myself in my room, blasting break up songs, eating chocolates while screaming at the TV whenever the girl tries to get the guy in a chick flick that 'he doesn't love her'."

Kevin looks at him, lost. "But you didn't break up with this person?" he says, confusion bleeding into his tone.

"Yeah, I know. I was just being dramatic? Referencing that one scene from _Legally Blonde_?" Gabriel says this all as questions, as if he's waiting for Kevin to suddenly give him a look of recognition and understanding. It didn't happen, though; Kevin still looks fairly lost.

"_Legally Blonde_? I don't think I've seen that movie before," he admits and Gabriel smacks the table rather loudly and a few people in the room jump or turn their heads to look at them in surprise.

Gabriel ignores them. "You haven't seen _Legally Blonde_? Holy shit, dude, you gotta! It's like... Like, who hasn't seen _Legally Blonde _before?!" he exclaimed.

"You make it sound like I was deprived of my childhood because I never saw this. It's just one movie. I was allowed to watch movies, I just didn't watch that one," Kevin explains, but Gabriel doesn't buy it.

He has spent many movie nights with Jess and Charlie, the three of them watching _Legally Blonde_ so much they could recite it word for word alongside the actors. It had formed initially out of Jess' Reese Witherspoon phase back in seventh grade, but well after that phase had passed, they had continued to watch _Legally Blonde_ as a fun bubblegum pop-kind of movie. Gabriel is aware of the type of movie isn't for everyone - not all kids liked to watch movies with the pitch as basically: 'a girl goes to Harvard Law because she got dumped and tries to win the guy back' - but it's a fun movie.

And Kevin has to watch it, at least just once to say he did.

"Are you busy this Friday?"

Kevin, caught off guard, blinks. Then he says, "No? Why?"

_Perfect! It's been too long since Gabriel had his friends over for movie night. And he had a feeling Kevin will fit in perfectly with them. _

"My friends and I have these movie nights, usually every other Friday and it's at my house this week," he begins. "We haven't picked a movie to watch yet, but I know if I suggest _Legally Blonde_, Charlie and Jess won't have much of a problem, Dorothy either. You should come too! Then you'd be able to actually watch it, at least once!" Gabriel is grinning brightly and Kevin seems to think it all over, a bit hesitant.

"I don't know… I don't really know your friends. Wouldn't I kinda be imposing?" he asks Gabriel, who shakes his head quickly.

"Nah, you'll be fine! If you want, come join us for lunch today and you can meet them then!" Gabriel, then adds the next part as more of an afterthought, "You don't have to though, if you already are planning to sit with someone else."

He doesn't want Kevin to feel forced to join his friends, or truthfully come to the movie night. Gabriel sometimes doesn't even realize that he can come off as a bit demanding of others, in the sense that he tends to make suggestions sound more like statements or decide things for others. Perhaps it's a younger sibling thing, he doesn't know - only Dorothy has an older sibling. Charlie was an only child and Jess has two step-sisters that are eight years younger than her. Yet, even when mentioning this with Dorothy, she had said she didn't do that, but it could just be different having three older brothers to just one - but he's aware not everyone seems to like when he did this.

"Uh, sure. Okay, yeah, I'll come. You guys all have first lunch, right?" Kevin asks. "Okay. So I'll meet you in the cafeteria then at about eleven fifteen."

"Awesome! And movie night? You don't have to come if you don't want, by the way. I ain't gonna force you to."

Kevin nods. "It's fine. Yeah, I'll come to that, too. It an all night thing or…?" He trails off, looking expectantly at Gabriel who just responds with, "I'll explain to you later," as the anthem begins to play.

* * *

Lunch comes around and sure enough, Gabriel finds Kevin waiting by the cafeteria doors. He taps him on the shoulder, getting his attention and waving hello before gesturing for the boy to follow him to their table. From there, Kevin meets the rest of the gang, and it's a bit awkward at first, with stilted conversations about school stuff and basic hobbies - it's the opposite, somehow, of when Dorothy first joined them, Gabriel notes - but eventually they start to warm up a bit, and Gabriel can see Kevin relaxing more with his friends.

It's like any time someone meets a new group of people, and when they eventually go their separate ways for third period, Gabriel can confidently say things didn't go completely to shit. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't absolutely awful and sent Kevin running without looking back.

Kevin ends up going them again for lunch the next day, and the next, and true to his word, shows up at Gabriel's house for movie night on Friday.

He sits awkwardly for a bit on the couch in Gabriel's living room while they wait for Dorothy to get here - she hasn't come right after like Charlie or Jess had, instead coming later because she has to help her mother with something first.

"Let's play a game," Charlie suggests, from where she's lounged on the other couch.

Jess looks over at her, stealing the chip bowl from Gabriel. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

Charlie pauses, trying to think of what game they should play but comes up with nothing. She glances at Gabriel for a suggestion, but he just gives a shrug while trying to steal the chip bowl back. "I don't know," she eventually says. "Wait, didn't you volunteer at a summer camp over the summer? You did! You had to have remembered some games we can play, right?"

"Not any that don't involve either a bunch of people or some supplies," Jess explains.

"I mean, I think I got a deck of cards with me," Kevin pipes up. "We could always play a quick game of Prez if you want."

"Prez?" Gabriel echoes, not familiar with the name of the card game. He's played cards with the rest of his brothers, but having older brothers, especially those like Michael and Lucifer, he has grown up playing Go Fish and Cheat as a small child, and when he was nine, learned Blackjack and Rummy.

Kevin nods, moving from the couch to go to his bag. While rifling through the bag, Kevin begins to explain the rules. "It's a pretty easy game to catch on to," he tells them, successfully finding the deck of cards and pulls it out of his bag. Kevin goes back to where the girls and Gabriel are, opening the deck and beginning to deal out the cards.

"Basically how it works is someone will start with the three of spades, and then going around the circle, you have to put either the same card, or higher. If you put the same card, you 'burn it' and we discard all the cards in the pile, and the person who 'burned it' gets to go again and choose how we start. If they play doubles, you play doubles too, same with triples or quads," Kevin says. "Twos are the highest - they can burn any card. One two burns singles and doubles, two twos for triples and three for quads. If you go in order, like a three-four-five, then that's a run, and each person who put one of those cards down gets to toss a card away and last person to play starts again," he continues, and the rest of the group picks up their cards, looking at their hand.

"Okay," Charlie says slowly, scanning her cards. "And you win by getting rid of all your cards first, right?"

"Yeah. First person to finish is president, next is vice president, then it goes vice bum and bum. You can end with any card but not a two, or else you are automatically bum because it's a burn card," Kevin adds. "There's a few other rules, but I can explain it after the first round when everyone gets their title."

The other three nod.

"Sounds good. It's three of spades that starts first, yeah?" Jess asks Kevin and after getting confirmation it is, puts her the three down.

"Okay, now Charlie, you can either put down a three to burn it, or any card higher than a three," Kevin says and the redhead nods, putting down a six of diamonds.

"Suits don't matter do they?" she asks, looking up at Kevin.

"Nah."

Gabriel goes next, putting down a seven of hearts which Kevin burns, clearing the pile to the side and starting fresh with two fours. "Doubles now, so you guys have to put pairs. If you can't, just say pass."

Slowly, as the number of cards in their hands dwindle, the other three began to pick up better how to play the game, and when the round ends, with Kevin as president, Jess as vice, Charlie vice bum and Gabriel bum, his three friends have a decent grasp on the game. From there, Kevin explains how many cards each person has to exchange with their counterpart, and soon they get quite into the game, each player making quiet deals or glancing at their opponents hands before burning or playing a specific card. It gets quite intense at one point, with Gabriel and Jess, both at two cards left and trying to get the title of president, that they don't hear the doorbell ring.

It's Kevin who hears it, and nudges Gabriel, he points out how Dorothy is probably here.

"Game's paused for right now. If you look at my cards Charlie, you will be spending the rest of the night with one eye open," Gabriel threatens, staring at her before getting up to go to the door when the doorbell rings again.

When he opens the door, he finds Dorothy standing there, a bag slung over one shoulder with her things, pillow in one hand and a plastic bag filled with bags of chips and candy.

"Sorry I'm late. I honestly don't get why my mom keeps doing this crap where she decides last minute to do something when I've told her before that I already have plans," Dorothy begins, as she walks into the house. Handing Gabriel the bag of snacks, she takes off her shoes. "On the plus side," she continues, "I convinced her to stop by the store on the way here and we got a ton of junk food. No need to raid Oz's stash."

"Sweet!"

Gabriel glances in the bag, grinning. "C'mon, everyone else is in the living room playing President."

"Oh, I love that game! Oz is usually shit at it so I'm almost always Prez," she says as the two of them walk to Gabriel's living room.

When they get into the living room, everyone greets Dorothy and Charlie gestures for her to sit near here, which had been, previously, Gabriel's spot.

Gabriel rolls his eyes before taking a seat on the floor beside Kevin.

"I also brought snacks," Dorothy adds and Charlie places a hand over her chest.

"Oh _thank_ _God. _I was prepared to raid Lucifer's hidden stash in the kitchen but then you came, my saviour in a blue hoodie, and rescued me from Gabriel's shitty snack choices," Charlie exclaims rather dramatically, leaning against Dorothy, and the other girl blushes at Charlie's words.

"Hey!" Gabriel shouts. "I take offense to that. My snacks aren't shitty!"

They were far from shitty choices, and Charlie will under any other circumstances admit so, but, if they are all honest, they aren't the finest snacks in Gabriel's stash - between Lucifer breaking into it and Gabriel forgetting to refill it, the stash had some of the more mediocre snacks left. Still good, but plain _Lays _potato chips and Sour Cream and Onion ones don't quite stand up to the Ketchup or Barbecue _Lays _and All Dressed _Ruffles _that were normally part of their movie nights. Even the candy selection is a bit lacking in its normal quality, hence why when Dorothy came with their snack essentials, Charlie had crowned her a goddess and her saviour of the evening.

"They are. You just won't admit it," Charlie shoots back and Gabriel points at the doorway of the living room.

"The door's that way. Thanks for coming, you've been a real pal, but, ah, well, would you look at the time! See ya," Gabriel tells her joking, looking down at his wrist as if he has a wrist watch there. "Also, you need two bucks for bus fair or you wanna walk?"

Charlie reaches over and shoves him. "Oh fuck off you love me, Gabe. Also, yeah, I'll take the two bucks if you're still offering."

Kevin watches between the two of them, visibly uneasy and Jess puts a hand on his arm. "Don't worry, they do this all the time. Bunch of drama queens, those two are. And to think, I'm the one who took drama class," she tells him. "Now, if we're done fighting, how about we start our movie and not torture poor Kevin with your theatrics? He signed up to watch Elle kick ass, not two suburban mom fighting over which of their children is the better kicker."

Jess looks at her two friends. "We done?"

Both Charlie and Gabriel nod. "I'm not sharing my shitty snacks with Charlie though," Gabriel says and Charlie shrugs.

"Fine, I'm banning you from Dorothy's snacks."

"Now, wait -"

Jess cuts in. "I thought I asked if you were done?"

Gabriel gives her a reluctant nod, looking far too sulky, while Charlie cheerfully chirps, "We are not!"

The blonde gives them a look but accepts the answer. "Okay, good. Gabe, you put in the movie, since you're the closest to the TV and also because only you actually know how to work your damn DVD player, old man," Jess says and Gabriel gets up - no longer acting all sulky. Charlie can't technically ban him from the snacks, that's Dorothy's choice - making his way to the TV, pulling out the _Legally Blonde _DVD and putting it into the DVD player.

It takes a few moments of fiddling, but eventually the start screen appears on the tv, and after checking everyone is all good, Gabriel presses starts the movie. He then takes a seat right beside Kevin, snagging the bag of Sour Patch Kids and ignoring Charlie's cry of "hey!" and sits back to watch the movie. (Not after sticking his tongue out rather childishly at Charlie)

Gabriel could swear Jess muttered something about them being children under her breath, but he ignores that, and Charlie's pout, focusing on the movie.

* * *

It's about two weeks after their movie night - which had ended rather successfully with Kevin being pulled closer into their friend group and him joining them at lunch and later for the next movie night decided without question or hesitation - when Charlie pulls Gabriel aside on the Friday of their early dismissal as he leaves his religion class, catching Gabriel off guard. He'd been lost in thoughts, trying to figure out if he should even bother for the test they had Monday for religion or just focus on more important subjects, and hadn't noticed the redhead at first. So, when Charlie grabs his arm as he steps out of the religion portable and yanks him to the side, Gabriel jumps.

"Shit, Charls, you scared the crap outta me," he tells her, and she gives him a small grin.

"Oops?" Charlie doesn't look sorry at all. "Was excited."

Gabriel gives her a look. "I can tell. What's up?"

"Okay, so I might've had this big realization, like, last night when I was watching some dumb youtube video and it's been with me all night and morning and, well -"

He interrupts her, knowing she'll keep going if he doesn't and never get to the point. "Charlie, you're rambling. What's wrong?"

Charlie fidgets with her sweater sleeve before saying, "Would it be awkward if I, _hypothetically_, wanted to date someone we were friends with?" Her loud, bouncy personality has been subdued, and she's giving off the air of nervousness that Gabriel notices quite quickly.

"If we're talking hypotheticals, then no." Gabriel decides to play along with her game of hypotheticals, having a feeling that it isn't all that hypothetical.

She gives a little "oh," that's soft enough Gabriel thinks he might've missed it.

"Who are you planning to hypothetically date in our friend group?"

Their friend group is rather small, and knowing Charlie's sexuality, it makes it even slimmer. He thinks over who they regularly speak with, but can only make a list of Jess and Dorothy, and knowing Charlie for so long, he doesn't think it's Jess that Charlie has a crush on (he doesn't know her DnD friends well enough to consider them - they also aren't mentioned much by Charlie, so he figures he shouldn't even bother to put them in the list of people Charlie potentially has a crush on). "It's Dorothy isn't it?"

Charlie looks at him with wide eyes, clearly surprised. "I— Uh, well—" At Gabriel's look, she quits her stammering and nods. "Yea." She pauses before continuing. "Is it obvious?"

He shakes his head. "I honestly had no clue, I was just guessing," Gabriel says truthfully.

"Oh."

Charlie goes quiet, and the two stand facing each other in silence. The silence makes Gabriel feel awkward, and he can tell it's not the kind of silence that signifies Charlie wants the topic to be changed. Rather, she doesn't quite know how to continue so Gabriel speaks up. "So, did you tell her yet?"

"Tell her what? That I have a crush on her?" Charlie exclaims, looking at him in shock. "Fuck no! That'd make everything awkward between us!"

"You can't be certain of that. Did you always joke that friend groups that have one LGBTQ+ person usually have more than one because, and I quote, 'gays attract each other without even knowing'?"

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. "That's just a joke. Besides, we don't even know if Dorothy's not straight. I might upset her if I tell her I like her."

That's true, but Gabriel also finds it kind of silly. They don't even know if Dorothy is straight - it's never come up in their conversation, and there's a chance she's still in the closet. "Or you might not," Gabriel tells Charlie, but she looks a bit unimpressed.

"It's useless, Gabe." She doesn't want to argue, and Gabriel can tell.

Charlie gives a sigh. "Could we get hot chocolate and drink to my suffering?" she suggests in a low voice, turning the conversation away from her possibility of not getting rejected by Dorothy.

"Yeah, sure." Gabriel is no expert in love - hell, he isn't even close to a love amateur - but even he knows what Charlie is suggesting isn't the best. Yes, there's the possibility of rejection, but she still has the chance to try and maybe have Dorothy say yes. But rather than take the risk, she's willing to ignore her feelings and pretend nothing is bugging her. "I still say you should tell Dorothy, Charls. Even if it makes things awkward. It might not."

He makes his voice sound hopeful and Charlie shrugs. "Maybe. Did you realize before Adam asked you out that he liked you?" she asks and Gabriel shakes his head.

(They've spoken of the incident, and his friend group were all aware of Gabriel's god awful date, Charlie finding it funny that the most embarrassing date Gabriel had isn't even due to Lucifer's meddling, but just chance on Gabriel's part.)

"I had no idea, but after I knew, I thought back to a few things that had happened between us and could notice little things. I...It was a bit awkward, in the moment when he asked but I think you and Dorothy, even if it didn't work out properly, wouldn't have it end up like Adam and me, you know? The two of you, you guys know each other much better and it's not you befriending her to date her. You just happened to fall in love with your friend and I'm sure you've read enough fanfiction to know what might happen next if you pretend it doesn't exist."

"Mutual pinning while both parties believe it to be unrequited love, huh?" She suggests and Gabriel, with a chuckle, says "yes."

"I'll... I'll tell her eventually. Just, maybe not yet," Charlie caves eventually and her friend nods. "Now let's go get hot chocolates and enjoy this early dismissal."

Gabriel smiles, shoving his hands in his jacket pocket as he had started to lose feeling in them. "Sounds good to me."

He doesn't mind helping his friends with relationship stuff, but Gabriel often finds it messy and kind of silly. People seem to do certain things based on their hearts while not considering what might happen if they act a certain way - or act at all. Maybe it's because of Gabriel's previous, well, _lack of attraction_, but Gabriel figures if people communicated more, it'd make things much easier. He wants Charlie to do something, but he can't force her to do that. Or anything, really.

So until she's ready, the two fifteen year olds focus on their hot chocolate and the fact they have a shorter day of school than their love lives. So right now, they focus on hot chocolate, not love lives.

* * *

"So how's your hippie religion teacher?" Jess asks one day during lunch, munching on her fries. They had just come from second period and Gabriel had already been sitting at the table, grumbling under his breath when she had sat down. "You nearly choke on incense again?"

"Not quite. He didn't end up lighting them until at least halfway through the period so that was a relief. Also," Gabriel straightens up in the seat a bit better. "Remember how I told you about all the things he had hanging from the ceiling of the portable?"

Jess nods, eating another fry. "The ones you called a fire hazard and were likely to catch on fire from the incense or some other dumb shit?" She pauses, before her eyes go wide. "Holy shit, did they actually catch on fire?"

She sounds excited about the thought but he shakes his head. "Nah, they weren't up anymore. I think he got told to take 'em down because they were, ya know, a fire hazard. The damn hamsters are still there, though," Gabriel tells her and Jess gives him a pout.

Gabriel's teacher is quite the interesting persona, and many of the kids who had had him last year for religion joked he probably smoked weed. He's way too chill with all the students, using lingo like 'yo' and calling them all 'dudes' and, like mentioned, burned incense in their classroom. He also has these little ninja hamsters that when you pressed a button on them, they vibrate and move to the Kung Fu Fighting song and would, during quizzes, play the _Jeopardy!_ theme song.

The guy is, all in all, no fucking way an actual person and tons of people who Gabriel recounted his experiences with tried to call bullshit. Gabriel only laughs, shaking his head because as cryptic and wild the teacher is, he isn't the worst teacher he has had and somehow the teacher enjoys Gabriel's wild theories and comments on religion.

"Damn. You'd think someone would've tried to steal one of them before now, but apparently not," says Jess.

"Dude probably keeps a ton of them in his desk. I'd die if he noticed one was missing and pulled out a spare from under his desk or something. Or maybe he keeps it with his stupid little bongo set in the cupboard behind his seat."

Jess shrugs. "Maybe. Anything else interesting happened?"

"Nah, just got one hundred on my essay about capital punishment," Gabriel says nonchalant, reaching over to grab a fry from Jess.

"Was that the one where he said the guidelines were, like, you had to write seven proper paragraphs?" She can't remember him mentioning any other particular essays, but there's a chance she could be wrong.

"And he said it could be a minimum of two pages?" he finishes and she nods. "Yeah, that was the one." Gabriel reaches into his bag and pulls out the assignment, pushing it over to Jess. "I'm starting to think he only skims through these though because my friend got a nine outta ten with some spelling errors but lost a mark because the title page wasn't exactly like how he wanted it. Also, the fact that I went off topic a few times, especially on the last paragraph," he explains, and Jess flips through it, looking over it quickly before getting to the last paragraph.

He can see Jess reading over it properly, rather than skimming, and when she gets to the end of it, hands it back to Gabriel. "Huh, I didn't know you were a fan of Bundy," she says.

Gabriel laughs. "I'm not. I just chose him because he's one of the big names when you think of serial killers and one article lead to the next and well, before I knew it, I had way too much info on Bundy that might be a bit questionable to your ordinary teacher or reader, and knew quite well the history on various forms of capital punishment. It was a bit of a silly assignment, but hey, got a good mark so I ain't complaining."

"That definitely beats our Lord of the Flies essay we're working on," Jess tells him, and Gabirle has to agree.

The essays and assignments they had for religion were basically nothing compared to the essays they had for English class. One thing is their English teacher cares about sources - the religion teacher not so much. His only requirement for a citation has to be one bible verse or bit from a list he gave that basically were the ten commandments. Another, is the fact that it needs a proper thesis, detailed and structured body paragraphs, and a conclusion that actually sums up the whole essay. That means quotes from the text, from other sources, understanding their novel, etc. (Also, that if he wants a good mark, he can't write it the night before it's due, unlike his religion assignment. Or make it ten pages)

"So," Gabriel decides to change the topic to Jess. "Anything fun come from history class?"

"Just the same old boring stuff. I wish we got DeTom instead of Oulette. At least we'd get to do sick historical reenactments."

Neither of them had gotten the head of the history department, DeTomaso, who is known for not only having a very interestingly decorated classroom and teaching style, but also, when they reached world war two, would spend one day treating the kids like he's their sergeant in the war. Gabriel can still remember when he had gotten so into it that Gabriel, from his civic classroom - which was right next to DeTom's class - heard DeTom shouting at a kid who had been late for class and happened to unfortunately walk down the hallway at the same time as the drill. Everyone had jumped in surprise, and moments later, the student had meekly opened the door to their civics class to take their seat, clearly still trying to process what just happened.

"Ah well, maybe next year if you continue taking it."

"Maybe."

They fall silent, as Gabriel, who has pulled out his lunch as well and starts to eat. "You think we'll all get the same lunch period next year?" he asks out of the blue, food still in his mouth.

"Ew," Jess says, giving him a look and Gabriel gives her an apologetic smile, mumbling, "sorry."

"But, yes. I hope we do. It's too boring with only the two of us having first lunch and the rest of them having second lunch," Jess continues, eating a fry. "Any updates on if your brother has any plans on setting you up again?"

"None. But we've still got time. Until then, we can entertain ourselves with the whimsical adventures of Mister Blue," he tells her with a laugh, and Jess smiles.

"Brilliant. I need you to convince him you're some kind of Jesus freak but use only what you've learned from Charlie's favourite books and TV shows."

It's a silly thing, but Gabriel likes the idea of it. He's pretty sure he's at the top of the class, so he has room to kinda goof off a bit and have some fun with this teacher. Besides, from what he's noticed so far, Blue hasn't seemed to mind his antics and if Gabriel could weave in some of the logic and religious aspects of Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and the Lucifer TV show, well, who could give him much shit? After all, the teacher did say at the beginning that he wanted everyone's honest opinions in the class, and if he wanted to hear the atheist in their class opinion on Heaven and Hell, then why not what other pop culture pieces thought as well?

Gabriel grins widely, enjoying the idea. "Oh, believe me. I will."

* * *

No one mentions Gabriel's horrific date for roughly two months. It's kept so secret, locked up and key tossed away that Gabriel doesn't know how the fuck Lucifer found out about it. None of his friends had said anything about it, especially not in Gabriel's house where his brother could hear, none would tell him, and it's not like Lucifer was friends with Adam - who Gabriel could bet his life savings on, didn't say a word to another soul about what happened.

And yet, as Gabriel is enjoying his Saturday, eating a bagel with nutella and peanut butter, Lucifer comes strutting into the kitchen far too eager for someone who isn't usually up at a time that's still single digits.

"So, Gabriel, why didn't you tell me about your surprise date you had a few months ago with the girl from your math class?"

Lucifer asks this just as Gabriel took a big gulp of milk and promptly spits it out, coughing as it ends up going down the wrong tube. "I—- What the fuck?" Gabriel coughs out, voice rough and raspy.

His brother, unimpressed and possibly a little disgusted by the display before him just raises an eyebrow. "Your date? The one where you had said you had stayed later to be with a girl to get help for math? Where you then went out after to get drinks and stuff?" Lucifer continues, not caring that Gabriel appeared to be possibly dying in front of him. "None of that ring a bell?"

Most of it does, except for the part about a _girl_. Gabriel isn't going to correct him on that, but from what his brother said, it seemed Lucifer had gotten a jumbled version of the events that went down That Day which allowed Gabriel some relief. If his brother doesn't know the exact details, he could hopefully spare himself the worst of the teasing. That doesn't guarantee none though.

He clears his throat, trying not to cough again. "A bit. How do you know about that?" Gabriel asks, playing along. _Might as well. _

"Oh, you know," Lucifer waves a hand, smiling casually. "Little birdie told me." He leans closer as he sits across from Gabriel at the table. "Funny you never mentioned this, Gabe."

"Didn't figure you wanted to know every mundane bit of my life, brother," he shoots back. Gabriel takes a bite out of his bagel and chewing, continues, "Is it really that big of an issue?"

He plays it off like it's nothing and Lucifer laughs.

"Little brother, of course it is. Your first real date since Dorothy. Shame things didn't work between the two of you, but this girl, who knows? Maybe she might be a bit more interesting."

The way Lucifer talks makes Gabriel shift in his chair. He knows it's all about the bet in his brother's mind, but it has to be a bit unhealthy focusing this much on Gabriel's love life.

_The guy needs the girlfriend, not me, _Gabriel thinks. _Someone to pay attention to rather than get a bit too personal about his love life. He's his brother, not a nosy grandmother!_

"Okay, _sure_." He rolls his eyes.

"What was her name?" Lucifer pries, and Gabriel needs to think of something witty, fast.

He can use Sarah, she's a suitable and believable human being, but in that moment, Gabriel forgets her. So, instead, not wanting to take too long that Lucifer starts asking the wrong questions, he blurts out the first name that came to his mind.

"And?" Charlie hangs on to every word eagerly, more focused on this than the last minute homework they were supposed to be doing during their lunch break. "What name did you use?"

He was sitting in the cafeteria with the rest of his friends, retelling the situation from the Saturday that just passed,and they all found it rather entertaining, even Kevin. It's stupid, making up a name for another imaginary person but Gabriel prides himself on the whole play on the name.

"Amanda."

The table's quiet before Dorothy repeats, "Amanda? Why Amanda?"

"Because Lucifer was so stuck on believing that this was a girl in my math class but it wasn't. It was a man, _duh." _Gabriel puts stress on all the syllables of the name, and he can see his friends processing it for a moment.

Jess mouths it under her breath before looking up with a surprised expression. "_No."_

He nods and grins. "_Yes."_

Kevin looks a bit lost and Charlie, who gets it, begins to giggle uncontrollably. Jess, noticing Kevin didn't fully understand the joke behind the name, leans over and murmurs quietly what he didn't end up understanding. Then, Kevin turns and looks at Gabriel with wide eyes. "You're absolutely awful, Gabriel," he tells the other boy, who just lets out a cackle.

"That's what he gets for constantly bugging me about getting a girlfriend."

"But don't you now have to pretend some girl named Amanda exists and have fake dates with her to not make Lucifer suspicious?" Kevin, the true voice of reason within their group, asks and Gabriel's joyful mood dissipates.

"Oh fuck."

He hadn't considered that, somehow. And now, now he's stuck trying to pretend to have a crush on a girl that doesn't exist to get his brother off his back. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why didn't I consider that Lucifer's definitely gonna try and find out more about her or try to set me up on dates with her?"

Gabriel groans, head falling into his hands.

Charlie pats his shoulder. "Hey, you'll survive. All you gotta do is find a random girl who's willing to play along for a bit - it could even be like one or two 'dates' where you guys just chill and go get coffee or see a movie - and then eventually have her move away or some shit. Then you be all heartbroken and Lucifer will have to stop for the time being," she explains, and like always, it's a thorough plan that could work.

"That'd be tricky," Dorothy points out, but before Gabriel could give another groan, adds quickly, "but not impossible! We just need a girl to play along for a bit. I'd suggest one of us, but I think by now Lucifer knows our faces and names."

"Fair enough," Gabriel mumbles from where his face is covered by his hands. "You guys know anyone who'd be willing to play along? I'd even pay them if they wanted."

The whole table frowns, all appearing to rack their brains for someone who could play along with their game without being upset. Then Jess speaks up, breaking the silence that has fallen between the friend group.

"I might know someone. But I'd have to ask her first to see if she's cool with this," she tells Gabriel, who seems to perk up immensely.

"Thank you, Jess!" He pulls her into a hug, which is awkward considering she's sitting across the table from him.

"No promises yet, Gabe. I still gotta ask her first."

But it's still a start. Gabriel, right in that moment, wonders how one little bet has amounted to all this. A fake girl. A fake crush. What next? It's almost the plot of a fanfic Charlie might read, only this isn't a fake dating AU, mainly because the bet's specifically said no dating girls. Still, it's just one step away from that.

If this all goes pear-shaped, Gabriel will kill his brother.

* * *

Jess' friend, Madison, ends up saying yes to the whole charade they have going on. She meets with Gabriel after fourth period and they sit in the cafeteria - it's far too much like Gabriel's last disaster date, he realizes with a wince. _Please God, don't let this end that way too, _he pleads - to discuss what the plan entails.

"It won't be anything serious. No fake dating or relationship," he clarifies to Madison, who's a sweet girl and fine with doing this without any pay or I-O-Us.

Madison nods, understanding him. "You just pretend you like me and we go out for, like, a coffee or something as a date?" she echoes what Jess had told her before having agreed to the whole thing, and this time, it's Gabriel's turn to nod.

"Exactly. I'll pay for you and everything. It's basically to get my brother off my back about trying to get me a girlfriend. We can do this as long as you want - the moment you're uncomfortable, we can stop. I just need him to believe there's some girl named Amanda who I have a crush on."

"So I'm guessing then you're gonna call me Amanda?" Madison asked. "Why Amanda?"

Gabriel tries to play it off as a shrug, not wanting to explain the real choice behind the name. "I just panicked. First name that came to my head," he lies - or well, half-lies. He did honestly panic, and chose a name quickly, but some thought did go into the name Amanda. It wasn't just pulled out from his ass. Madison stares at him and Gabriel thinks that maybe she doesn't believe him, but she then nods.

"Okay. Could I get your number? If your brother sees us texting each other and stuff it might make it more believable."

"Uh, sure."

Gabriel hands over his phone, unlocked, and she puts in her number before sending herself a text so she gets his number.

"Let me know when you want to go out on a fake-date, Gabriel," she tells him with a smile as she hands back his phone.

"You're chill with all this?" The question leaves his lips as Madison is rising from the bench, and she pauses, looking at him with curious brown eyes. This a bit of a crazy plan and he doesn't want her to think she has to do this for Jess. Or for him, since he's Jess' friend.

"Sure. It sounds like a fun prank on your older brother and since it's not going to be, like, anything major like actual fake-dating or kissing, I don't really mind," Madison explains. "And you don't need to owe me anything for agreeing to this," she adds when she sees Gabriel opening his mouth to speak. "You paying for our fake-dates we have is fine."

Gabriel doesn't know how to respond, it going over much smoother than he expected initially. So, he settles on, "thank you" because she doesn't have to be doing this, but is.

"It's nothing, really." She flashes him another smile. "As long as we don't fall in love, we're good. See ya 'round, Gabe." Madison then gets off the bench, grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. As she turns to walk away, she gives him a wave goodbye before leaving out the cafeteria doors to the school's parking lot.

He's not quite sure what he's gotten himself into. Gabriel grabs his own bag, snagging his phone too and makes his way out of the school towards the bus stop.

* * *

Gabriel plays the part of a boy with a crush on a girl - or at least what he thinks is a boy with a crush. He isn't one hundred percent sure he's completely accurate, but figures if he can make it somewhat convincing, Lucifer won't think too much of it.

He mentions Amanda once or twice, usually in passing, or will glance at his phone and smile whenever 'Amanda' texts him. (Madison had put her name down as Amanda with a heart emoji beside it. It seemed a bit sappy and dumb, but apparently it was enough to fuel his brother's giddy excitement. Lucifer, it seems, truly believes that he has a chance of winning the bet with Gabriel's apparent crush on this girl. Unlike before with Dorothy or Charlie or Jess, Gabriel finds his brother doesn't make that many comments or suggestive statements in relation to Amanda.

Instead, he stays relatively quiet about all of it, and if Gabriel isn't so focused on keeping up appearances and school work, he might've been suspicious and worried. But he isn't and so the two Novak children live their lives without bothering the other; Lucifer focusing on his exams coming up and Gabriel on homework to finish before Thanksgiving rolls around.

At school, Gabriel's pretend crush takes a backseat to everything else, and he focuses on assignments for religion, on the big group project for career's class and the new math unit (which can literally kiss his ass. If only he and Adam were still on talking terms.) He also notices how Charlie acts around Dorothy, looking at the brunette with a smile always on her face. Charlie stares at Dorothy with such a fondness that he wonders how the other girl hasn't yet noticed. Every time Gabriel looks over in Charlie's direction, he's seen how she looks at Dorothy, so it should be logical that Dorothy's noticed now too. But she hasn't.

"We gotta get them together," Gabriel suggests to Jess as the two of them enjoy their lunch.

"Who?"

"Charlie and Dorothy. Charls is clearly smitten for Dorothy and there's no way Dorothy hasn't yet noticed," Gabriel states and Jess frowns.

"She might not be attracted to girls, Gabe," Jess points out, emphasizing this with the fork she's holding in her hand. "I mean, we all know Charlie's a lesbian, but Dorothy's said or done nothing to suggest she isn't straight and I don't want us to out her if she's not ready."

"I hate that you're right," he grumbles.

Jess gives him a sympathetic look. "It bugs me too, but maybe we just gotta let the two of them either gravitate towards each other, or wait until one confesses their feelings to the other."

Gabriel snorts at that. "Yeah, I don't think either of those will happen anytime soon."

"Who knows?" Jess stabs some lettuce with her fork. "Maybe they just need some time. You can't just lock people in a closet and hope for the best outcome."

He gets ready to make a snarky comment and Jess shuts him up before he can even say anything. "No. You know what I mean."

He sighs. "Guess we just gotta wait, huh?"

"Guess so," Jess agrees. "While we do that, how's your caricature sculpture for art going? You start working on the damn thing yet or still sketches?"

Gabriel pulls out his sketchbook, knowing she would want to see the two people he had narrowed it down to. "Still sketching. I'm not sure who to do though," he confesses and Jess, taking the sketchbook, stares at the two pages, each with the final sketch for his stature.

"I think Marilyn Monroe one would look cool. Especially with seeing how you'd do the dress," Jess begins. "But the Andy Warhol in the soup can, that's pretty good." She flips to the previous page, looking over his other possibilities for caricature sculptures. "Anyone that's already been confirmed?"

"A few. Gandhi, Tim Burton, Jack Sparrow, Meghan Fox, some singer I can't remember the name of…" he lists, trying to remember the rest of them. "Should I change who I have?"

"Nah. Do Marilyn. She'd turn out really nice when you're done."

Gabriel nods, taking back the sketchbook and looking down at his sketch of Marilyn. It'd be tricky, getting the right fabric to use for her dress to make it stand up for the iconic picture of her on the air vent, but maybe if he gave her a wire frame for the bottom of the dress, it might be possible to make it work. It'd just be a bit of a challenge - something that he knew would make it much more entertaining.

"So, are you gonna end up doing it out of class or what?" Jess asks, and Gabriel begins to explain how they were making the sculptures, using plaster strips to build up the body over the dry newspaper, before eventually painting it and creating the necessary props for her stand, hair, dress and any other little touches.

"And we're gonna use a giant water jug for her head to make it, well, big," he adds and Jess giggles.

"Sounds like fun. Let me know if you need any props for her."

"Will do."

* * *

The blissful lack of annoyance from Lucifer doesn't last too long. His brother gives him until right before Christmas break, it seems, before having enough of Gabriel just talking about his crush and not doing anything. So, when Gabriel is on his phone watching a Youtube video, Lucifer comes into his room, rips the phone out of his hands and runs.

Gabriel, for a second, just lies there in confusion, until he realizes what just happened, and jumps up from his bed, chasing after his brother.

"Give that back, you piece of shit!" he shouts, voice echoing down the hall as he runs, and he can hear Lucifer's laughter ring through the air.

He's got a bit of a head start against Gabriel, and he turns the corner, heading towards the staircase. It just gives Gabriel the hope he'll be able to catch up to his brother before Lucifer does something bad - and it can only be extremely bad, knowing his brother. It has to be something humiliating, or awful that Gabriel would want to more than smack his brother for. However, it appears to not be Gabriel's lucky day, as rather than choosing to run down the stairs, Lucifer takes a detour to the washroom.

"No! Get back here!" he shouts, as his brother runs into the washroom, locking the door, and effectively keeping Gabriel from getting to his phone.

Banging on the closed door hard and panting, Gabriel growls, "Give me my phone back, Lucifer. Now."

His brother doesn't listen (figures), and when Gabriel hears laughter, the knocking gets more frantic. "Luce, open the door now!"

It still doesn't work, and he's one step away from threatening his brother, but something says Lucifer won't budge until he finishes whatever task he set out to do.

So Gabriel tries other things. "MICHAEL! MICHAEL! LUCIFER TOOK MY PHONE!" his eldest brother, and Lucifer's twin, was home for the weekend and if there was one person who had the potential to knock some sense into Lucifer for bugging Gabriel, it was Michael.

"Mikey's out, little bro. So is Raph," Lucifer replies in a singsong voice. "Grocery shopping."

_Of fucking course._

"Give me my phone, now Lucifer," he said in a low voice, jiggling the door knob and also giving the door a good kick. The thing shakes, but nothing else happens. "Or else."

There's a pause. "Or else what, brother? What can you threaten me with that's effective enough to convince me to hand over your phone?" Lucifer's voice taunts, sounding smug. "You're free next Friday, right? Yes, well now you are."

There's more tapping on the phone, and Gabriel realizes with dread that Lucifer's been texting someone in the washroom while listening to Gabriel talk.

_Oh fuck._

"Friday afternoon at about three-thirty. Yes, yes, that sounds good."

_No. no. no. no. Lucifer…_

The door unlocks, and Gabriel's ready to leap at his brother as Lucifer opens it. He places the phone in Gabriel's open hand, smirking and walking past his fuming sibling. "Oh, you'll be thanking me soon brother. Got you a lovely date with that crush of yours, Amanda."

He's cracking as he turns the corner, but Gabriel doesn't care. He knows he had made a deal with Madison of some sort, but he hadn't planned to actually go on a date with her, at least not right now. But, it appears that Lucifer had other plans as when he looks down at his phone's screen, it was open to the text conversation with him and 'Amanda'.

* * *

**GABRIEL:** hey, i was wondering, you happen to be free this Friday after school?

**GABRIEL:** like 3.30?

**AMANDA: **uh yea why?

**GABRIEL: **wanna go and get drinks at Starbucks nearby?

**AMANDA: **sure!

* * *

Gabriel groans, ready to type out an apology to Madison when he stops and realizes that if he doesn't go, Lucifer might get suspicious. _Great, just great, _he thinks. _Looks like I'm getting Starbucks this Friday after school. _

He's definitely gonna kill his brother, who is the actual, literal, devil.

* * *

Gabriel ends up meeting with Madison at the bus stop outside their school, to get on the bus that will stop by the Starbucks near the subway station. They end up saying hi, and small talk starts not long after that, while they wait for the bus, and then, when they board the bus. The ride to the coffee shop is relatively short, with traffic not being completely awful this Friday, and they get there by three o'clock. Getting off at their stop, Madison turns to Gabriel.

"I didn't peg you for a Starbucks kinda guy," she says, as they cross the sidewalk and make their way to the front doors.

"I'm not. My brother stole my phone and sent you that message," he admits, pulling open the door and holding for Madison to walk through first. "He figured since I was too nervous or something to ask out my crush, he'd do it for me. And now, here we are."

In line, getting overpriced coffee.

"I haven't even been inside a Starbucks before," he adds, and as they get closer to the register, he squints at the chalkboards on the back wall trying to decide what sounded decent enough to drink. "Do you suggest anything?"

Madison gives a laugh, and ends up ordering drinks for the both of them, something that Gabriel doesn't quite catch as he pays for it, but he's pretty sure it made something about a _dragon fruit _and _refresher _in the title? He could be wrong, but it's a magenta colour and doesn't look like it's gonna kill him.

"Relax, I'm not trying to poison you," Madison says, seeming to have read his mind. "C'mon, lets drink outside on the patio part."

He follows her out, back into the fresh air and sunlight, and hey snag a table in a shady spot, right beside two parents and their children.

Gabriel tries the drink, aware Madison is watching him the whole time, and admits, it isn't half bad. He's not sure he'd come here all the time to buy it - it isn't exactly cheap - but it isn't awful. "It's pretty good," he eventually says to her, and she smiles. "Good choice."

"Thank you." Madison has a sip of her own drink before saying, "Okay, so you told me your brother basically set you up on this date, why? And what's his big deal about trying to get you a girlfriend? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing older brothers do."

She has a point. Not all older brothers would do this kind of this, being a weird wing man for their younger brothers, especially an older brother that doesn't have a girlfriend himself.

"We have a bet going on," Gabriel says, and Madison looks intrigued.

_Go on, _she seems to say, without moving her mouth.

Gabriel continues. "It was a bet that I'd have a girlfriend before I graduated high school and Lucifer, my older brother, thinks I will. That's why he's trying to set me up on these dates and is so obsessed with me getting a girlfriend. If I do, I owe him seventy-five bucks," he explains.

"That makes a bit more sense, the whole Amanda thing. Kind of. Does he do a lot of pranks like this?" Madison asks and Gabriel nods enthusiastically.

"Oh yeah, all the time! There was actually this one that involved a ton of soup and matches…" Gabriel starts retelling the time that they had basically gotten banned from one Walmart, and by the end of it, Madison is gasping for air, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Between breaths, she begs him to tell her more, and that's how they spend the next hour and a half, with Gabriel retelling previous bets he's lost against his brother, each one more outlandish and crazier than the last.

"How have you guys not been kicked out of literally every place yet?" She eventually asks, wiping her eyes, voice hoarse from laughing so much. "I'm pretty sure at least one thing you said was illegal."

He offers her a shrug. "I'm not too sure, honestly. Charlie's mentioned the same thing, once or twice, when I've talked about the bets Lucifer and I have made in the past. We've learned that a bunch of places just have a high tolerance for bullshit," Gabriel explains.

Madison nods, and her phone buzzes. Putting down her drink, she flips it over, and reads the message, frowning. She then looks up at Gabriel. "I gotta go, sorry. I completely forgot that I was supposed to meet with my friend to help her plan the last few things before the Holiday Food Drive. It was fun talking with you, Gabe," she says with a smile, gathering all of her things to go.

"You too. Hey, you taking the subway back?"

"Yeah. I'm guessing you too?"

"Yup."

Madison grabs his drink. "C'mon then. We can head out together and then have a bit more time before we gotta go our separate ways."

It sounds perfectly fine to Gabriel, and he's aware that, as much as he doesn't want to, that he has homework he needs to finish for tomorrow. So, grabbing his bag and slinging one strap over his shoulder, Gabriel takes his drink back with a "thank you", and together the two make their way to the subway station.

The walk is pleasant and short, filled with easy small talk that continues once they get onto the platform and later when they get on the train. Madison herself only has to go one stop, so before they know it, she's waving goodbye and stepping off the platform (not without adding a, "this was fun. Text me if you need to have another fake-date to get your brother off your back"), leaving Gabriel alone on the train, still a few stops away from his destination. In the quiet downtime, with his headphones in, Gabriel finds himself reflecting on his fake date. He knows Lucifer will ask about it later, and he's perfectly shaped together a tale to tell that will satisfy his brother for the time being, but Gabriel can't help but think that this fake date went much smoother than his last - although, in his defense, it wasn't quite a fake date, nor was Gabriel even aware it was supposed to have date-like elements to it. It had felt less like a fake date and more like a get together with friends, the two of you drinking and chatting, no romance involved.

Part of Gabriel wonders - just as the doors open at the next station and a couple walked in, hand in hand, heads close as they whispered something - if this is what an actual date was like. He has no experience, very little of his friends actually do, but he figures it has to be something of the sort. After all, having a significant other is much like having a friend, only there are some added things and Gabriel did all these things with friends, so to do so with a significant other can't be that much more extreme.

He looks back out the window, watching as the city blurs by when they go above the ground, thinking about how, despite this not being a complete disaster, Lucifer isn't going to get off easy for what he did.

Gabriel pulls out his phone, and opens it up to the group chat he has with his friends.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: i need a shovel. Or at least, promise me a solid alibi

* * *

It's dramatic, yes, but that's Gabriel entire personality. Plus from what he's learned, dramatic gets people's attention much faster than sending a plain, boring text. The chat is inactive for a moment, before a text bubble from Charlie pops up, showing her texting.

* * *

**CHARLIE: **why?

**JESS:** what'd you do?

* * *

Part of him wanted to feel offended at Jess' text, but then Gabriel pauses, rethinking some of the things he's done in the past and then reasons, _yeah, okay_, she has a point with her text. A bit of a playful sting, but not inaccurate. Still though:

* * *

**GABRIEL:** nothing!

**GABRIEL**: i had my fake date with Madison earlier and she was actually pretty sweet

**GABRIEL**: Luci still needs to learn his lesson for stealing my phone and texting Madison to set up a date with her

**KEVIN: **but how're you gonna do that? what could you do that'd actually amount back to what the did to you?

* * *

Kevin has a point, and Gabriel's stumped, not sure how to respond right away. This can't be something sloppy, or else it'll have very little to no effect on his brother. At the same time, however, they don't want to spend hours and hours trying to plan something and throw it all together. It has to be quick, efficient and successful.

* * *

**DOROTHY:** does he have a girlfriend?

**GABRIEL:** Luci? Nah. I don't think he's ever had a girlfriend before. Why?

* * *

The texting bubble appears by Dorothy's name and Gabriel waits for her response. The others are still in the chat, but they've gone silent for the time being, awaiting Dorothy's reply too.

* * *

**DOROTHY:** then why not get him one?

* * *

It sounds so innocent, and Gbairle's more than ready to dismiss the thought quickly before stopping himself.

* * *

**GABRIEL:** wait, you have a point. What if I got him a girlfriend?

**CHARLIE:** but how?

**GABRIEL:** idk

**JESS: **what about dating apps? Does he have any?

**GABRIEL**: not that I know of, why?

* * *

Jess then, with Charlie also picking up on her train of thought, brings up how, last year, Charlie had suggested making him a Tinder account to mess with him.

* * *

**JESS: **didn't you want to play fire with fire?

**CHARLIE**: i do like what you're suggesting jessie

**JESS: **of course you do. You came up with the idea Charls

* * *

(Gabriel can practically _feel_ the eye roll in her text)

It's a bit cruel to the poor girl(s) who might get caught in their game, but Gabriel thinks it might be able to still work out. And with a few explanations, he might be able to pull this off with his friends.

* * *

**GABRIEL:** that could actually work. It'd be interesting and might actually help him get off my back too

**KEVIN: **so we all gonna get together and make this account?

**DOROTHY:** hell ya we are. I don't wanna miss out on this!

* * *

Gabriel laughs at her enthusiasm in the text.

* * *

**GABRIEL: **perfect! So for movie night at Charlie's we can do this? That way we don't gotta worry about Luce coming in or overhearing anything

**CHARLIE**: cool cool sounds good

**JESS:** kay

**KEVIN:** sounds good. We still on for Pirates of the Caribbean marathon dorothy?

**DOROTHY**: yeah, i'm still bringing them, stop stressing Kev.

**DOROTHY: **or would u rather I bring a bunch of Barbie movies?

* * *

It's supposed to be a joke, Gabriel thinks, but he can't help but remember how good some of the old Barbie movies were. _Damn, that'd be a fun movie night theme._

He brings that up to the chat, who all too quickly change the topic of the chat into old Barbie movies, Charlie talking about some ranking system and Jess quickly disagreeing with half of them.

Rolling his eyes playfully at their shenanigans (Jess was currently calling Charlie uncultured because she ranked _Barbie Island Princess _above _Barbie, the Princess and the Pauper)_, he jumps back into the chat, far too ready to mess around with the rest of them for a big arguing and debating the rankings of all Barbie movies. For now, Lucifer is forgotten and they focus on just being kids without some silly bet hanging over Gabriel's head.

They do still end up making the Tinder account for Lucifer, and Dorothy, who has control of the phone at the moment, takes to swiping right on a number of men and women that she says look attractive - he's not sure, but Gabriel trusts her word on that - in hopes of getting a match. They had all chipped in into making this. Charlie had made it look interesting, Gabriel supplied the pictures, Charlie had done the bio, Dorothy was making the matches and Jess had taken over the role of texting and talking up with matches.

"Anyone good?" Jess asks from her spot in the nice recliner.

(Unlike Gabriel's house, Charlie's is much more spacious in the sense that it has a much larger and comfier couches and a cleaner atmosphere to it that his own home lacks. )

Jess is partially upside down, her hair brushing the wood flooring while her feet are up in the air on the recliner. "Nothing?"

Dorothy shakes her head. "Nada. It's like no one wants to date Lucifer."

"I don't blame 'em," Gabriel mumbles with a snort, and it sends Charlie into a laughing fit.

They don't end up getting any responses that first day, or at least none that are worthwhile pursuing. Both Jess and Charlie appear a bit downtrodden at that, but Gabriel isn't. Rather, he enjoys the bit of challenge that comes with trying to get the right person to mess with his brother.

The group, as Lucifer, had had a few conversations with some of their matches, but most either admitted they were just looking for a quick or easy fuck, or had far too busy schedules to try and plan a meet up around. One particular profile, however, Dorothy stopped at, not just swiping right away.

"Guys, how about her?" she asks the rest of the group, who move from their spots towards Dorothy

All peering over at the phone screen, they see a profile with a girl named Eve.

"Says she's 'nineteen, loves appletinis and has quite the green thumb'," Dorothy continues, reading the first bit of her bio. "There's a bit more about her, but I think she'd be interesting."

Gabriel takes his phone from her, staring down at the smiling profile of Eve. She has long, wavy hair which matches her dark brown eyes, and in the particular photo, appears to have a playful smirk directed right at the camera. She looks like a genuinely nice person and it feels wrong to use her to mess with his brother.

"I feel bad though. What if Lucifer lets her down or something? She seems like a nice person," Jess pipes up, voicing Gabriel's exact thoughts.

"Maybe things might work out though," Gabriel counters, trying to shrug off his worries."I mean, how funny would it be, Lucifer, the Devil, with Eve?"

The whole group looks at each other and Dorothy bites her lip. "If you say so."

"Honestly, she might not even match with us." Gabriel swipes on the profile, and to all of their surprise, a notification pops up saying they had matched. "Huh."

"Well? Go on, message her!" Charlie nudges his shoulder, leaning over to see the screen.

Gabriel clicks on the button to send a message to her and, pauses in the empty chat room, not sure what to say. What would Lucifer say? he thinks, fingers hovering over the keyboard. It has to be something not quite cheesy, but dumb enough that it appears suave and smooth while being not at all that.

_Could I tempt you to some drinks? _he texts. Moments after, Gabriel regrets what he sent, feeling it came off as far too arrogant and likely to turn Eve away.

* * *

**EVE:** perhaps... That depends what you're offering

* * *

_Huh. Maybe this might be interesting, _ he thinks. Gabriel reads her response out to his friends, waiting for their responses.

"She said she likes appletinis. Why not suggest that?" Kevin mentions. "Play along with the fact that she has the same name as the first woman."

Charlie mumbled something about her being the second woman, and Kevin glances at her. "Pardon?"

"Eve wasn't actually Adam's first wife, it was Lilith but she - never mind." Charlie cuts herself off. "Just, yeah, play along with the coincidence of names."

Gabriel nods.

* * *

**LUCIFER: **Appletini work? Or would you rather some other forbidden fruit?

* * *

"Dude, it sounds like you just asked her if she wanted your dick," Charlie says and Gabriel opens his mouth to argue that, "_no, it didn't!_" but stops and rereads the message.

He cringes, catching the innuendo. _Damn it. It does_.

He waits for Eve's reply, for the disgust but none comes.

* * *

**EVE:** maybe another time..

**EVE: **but can't say I'm one to turn down an apple when offered

* * *

Gabriel's surprised. Where pretending to do some devil shtick would scare off or discourage most people, Eve just keeps playing the game.

"You're either talking to the actual Eve," Jess begins, as Gabriel sends her another text, "Or this girl is just joining us in our game." The blonde doesn't have any clue which it could be, and Gabriel doesn't blame her.

None of them were expecting this. Yet, they keep talking with Eve, send back and forth witty jokes and one liners based on their names and biblical characters and as that happens, Gabriel feels himself getting attached to the sweet girl.

_Shit._ This is supposed to be some dumb prank against Lucifer for setting me up on that date with Madison but now I actually don't want things to screw this up with Eve.

* * *

**LUCIFER:** you free this Saturday?

**EVE:** of course!

* * *

She then send him the address of a bar, asking if he'd be cool with meeting her there at seven, to which Gabriel agrees to happily.

"When are you gonna tell Lucifer about this date?" Dorothy asks, after Gabriel sends a text about how he's excited for that date. "I mean, the last thing you want him to do is cancel it, but it's already Wednesday and if you don't tell him soon he might stand her up."

"Saturday morning. I'll tell him then."

"That's an awful idea. What if he already has plans?" Jess exclaims.

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "It's Lucifer we're talking about. He doesn't have any plans made, ever. Trust me, he'll be free this Saturday," he tells his friends, who still look at him as if they don't quite believe him. "Let's hope this makes him forget all about my love-life, at least for right now."

* * *

True to his word, on Saturday morning, at exactly seven-thirty, Gabriel knocks rather loudly on his brother's door, knowing full well that his brother is fast asleep on the other side. When he stops his pounding on the door, he waits, grinning brightly as he hears a thump and some cursing before the door is flung open by a rather pissed off Lucifer.

His brother's hair is sticking up in various directions, resembling a pissed-off hedgehog, and that only fuels the good mood Gabriel's in. On any other day, waking up at seven-thirty on a Saturday morning would leave him feeling drained and exhausted but right now, knowing he's bugging Lucifer, it makes the morning feel not so shitty (although it can't be said the same for his older brother)

Lucifer glares darkly at his brother. "Why the fuck are you knocking on my door at -" He trails off, glancing back at the clock behind him on his desk before focusing back on Gabriel. "At seven-thirty?" he finishes with a growl.

"I'm here to remind you about your date tonight," Gabriel says cheerfully and he swears he can actually see his brother's brain short circuit for a moment there.

His brother's face is blank as he tries to process what Gabriel just told him. And, since he's still half asleep, it takes much longer to get to him, but once it finally does, Lucifer gives him a suspicious look. "What date?" he says slowly. "I don't have a date tonight."

Gabriel laughs. "Sure you do. Drinks, seven o'clock tonight?" He cocks his head, an action that looks rather dog-like. "Don't tell me you forgot about Eve already?"

Still, Lucifer's face shows no recognition of what Gabriel's talking about and _oh lord does Gabriel wish he did something like this sooner!_

He gives an over the top gasp. "You did forget! And to think you suggested today and everything!"

"Gabriel…" Lucifer warns in a low voice. "What the fuck are you talking about?" He opens the door further, looking ready to grab his brother by the front of his shirt and drag him forwards.

"Or well," Gabriel continues, as if not hearing Lucifer (or ignoring him, which was, honestly, more likely in this situation), "More like I suggested today and everything."

"What did you do?" his brother snarls.

Gabriel waves his hand dismissively. "Relax, Luce. You're making this seem like a big problem." His smile is back, and wider than before. Lucifer's glare shouts _explain_ and so Gabriel does. "Really, all I did was try to help you. You're always trying to help get me together with some girl and I felt Michael and Raph were right, you seemed lonely. So I made you a tinder profile and after a little bit of swiping, found a girl you might like."

He pulls out his phone, and without handing his brother it, opens the app and shows his brother Eve's profile.

Lucifer reads it over, then looks back up at Gabriel. "Is this supposed to be payback for what I did to you?"

He shakes his head. "Of course not," he lies, trying to look innocent.

His brother huffs, reaching for the phone, but Gabriel pulls it away before he can. He's learned from the last time Lucifer took his phone. "You want to see better for yourself? Download the app."

Lucifer mutters a curse under his breath, but does end up walking back into his room, grabbing his phone from where its charging on his desk. Unplugging it, Lucifer types in his password and, after a few moments of waiting for the app to download, he looks over at Gabriel. "What's the username and password?"

Gabriel smirks. "Lucifer Novak."

That gets typed in but the password is still missing. "And the password?" Lucifer asks, and Gabriel says, "Gabrielisthebestbrotherever, no spaces, capital G" before running off to his room.

His brother is silent for a moment. Then, "You little shit!" Lucifer calls out, but Gabriel's already gone, laughter bouncing off the walls.

* * *

_How'd the date go? _Dorothy's text reads on Gabriel's phone screen the next day and he abandons his religion homework to answer her text.

* * *

**GABRIEL: **don't know. Haven't heard anything back from luce yet but i think that's a good thing?

**GABRIEL: **he hasn't sent me a hundred texts threatening to hang me by my ankles from the roof so there's that

* * *

Dorothy doesn't answer right away, and Gabriel turns back to his religion sheets, filling out the rest of the questions. When he glances back at the phone, he see's Dorothy's finally responded.

* * *

**DOROTHY: **well that's something at least

**DOROTHY: **text the rest of the group when you get something or i'll be the one to hang you by your ankles from your roof

(He laughs at that.)

**GABRIEL**: will do

* * *

Gabriel doesn't end up finding out if the date was successful or not until Wednesday, and that's only because he hasn't bothered to log out yet of the Tinder app. Choosing to put off touching his homework for a little longer, Gabriel opens the app out of curiosity and opens it to the chat with Eve that he and his friends had started.

Since the date, a few more messages have passed between Lucifer and Eve, and Gabriel has to scroll up a bit to get to where the last text he had sent was. Then, reading through them to the most recent ones, he reads how Eve texted how she had actually had a good time on their date, and to his surprised, Lucifer did as well.

"Oh damn," he whispers to himself. As Gabriel continues to scroll, he finds that they've actually made another date for this Friday, lunch after her twelve-thirty biology class it seems, and immediately Gabriel exits out of the app and into his messages.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: holy shit they're gonna go on another date this Friday!

**JESS: **who? Eve and ur brother?

**GABRIEL:** YEAHH

* * *

Dots appeared to show Jess texting, and soon Kevin's name pops up as well, as he too is typing up a response.

* * *

**KEVIN:** oh wow somehow i didn't expect that to happen

**JESS:** I know! Holy shit does this mean he'll finally be off your back now that he has his own gf?

**GABRIEL:** idk but maybe

**GABRIEL:** maybe this means he'll lay off me a bit, like she'll be a better influence on him or smth

(Gabriel couldn't be more wrong. He swears there's times when Eve is just as cunning and smart as his brother is, and while appearing as a soft spoken sweet girl, could easily keep up with, if not surpass, Lucifer)

**JESS**: idk, guess we'll just have to see

* * *

Gabriel supposes that they will have to, because, when he switches back to the Tinder app, he finds that Eve had given Lucifer her number and from there it looks like their conversation had migrated to elsewhere. No longer was it possible for Gabriel to snoop on his brother's messages and find out what was happening.

Sighing, he turns off the phone. Exams are coming up soon, and whether this lasts long enough to permanently distract Lucifer from the bet - or at least as permanent as possible because no was in hell would Lucifer actually somehow forget about this bet - or doesn't go beyond the second date, a short break from the teasing would be nice.

* * *

Gabriel gets his wish, sort of. As exams get closer, Lucifer spends most of his time with Eve (they both, coincidentally go to the same university, something Gabriel actually hadn't even planned) and for the time being, forgets the bet. He figures they might be a bit more than a fling when even after exams and second semester starts, the two are still together - something Gabriel is still surprised about because he figured his brother couldn't remain committed to one girl for well over three months.

And yet it happens.

Three months then trickles into four, which in turn, become five and before Gabriel even knows it, it's already mid-May. Grade ten is nearly over, only weeks left, and his plan has worked. Sort of. Okay, not really.

What was supposed to be some form of revenge against his brother for what he had done earlier with "Amanda" had actually become Gabriel and his friends set Lucifer up with his now girlfriend - yes, they are official now. It had been mentioned back in February, and Gabriel's group chat had blown up the moment they got the news. Still, it did help in focusing his brother's attention elsewhere, until Lucifer realized he was able to multitask.

So, that's where Gabriel found himself, cursing his spaghetti as Lucifer not so innocently asked, "So Gabe, when you gonna have another date with Amanda? Or did you have one without telling me?"

They're at dinner and Lucifer has invited Eve over to a "meet-the-brothers" (as their father is, _yes, you guessed it,_ MIA, as always, and their mother had passed away when Gabriel was young). It had been a rather sudden surprise - like many of Lucifer's surprises - with Lucifer announcing the morning before that he invited Eve over to meet the rest of them, prompting Michael to raise a brow in surprise, Raphael to nearly drop his toast he had just picked up, and Gabriel to bang his elbow on the fridge. Michael had then scolded Lucifer for his lack of regard for other peoples' schedules, but ultimately was fine with Eve coming over, as was Raphael, and even Gabriel had to admit he was curious about the girl he had set his brother up with initially.

That next day, at about four o'clock, Gabriel hears the door unlock and open, and curious, creeps out of his room and into the hallway. Lucifer had called their names, hanging up his coat in the closet, taking Eve's then after to do the same.

She had been fairly shy at first, when the four of them - minus Michael who was cooking dinner in the kitchen - sat in the living room and talked, but as time passed, she seemed to warm up more to them and Gabriel could honestly say he thought she was the complete opposite of his brother. Until now, about an hour later, when they all sat around the table, eating Michael's spaghetti.

"Is Amanda your girlfriend?" Eve asks rather innocently, glancing over at Lucifer while Gabriel wonders if God would be kind enough to strike him down where he sits.

_It wouldn't be too hard_, he thinks.

Lucifer grins, answering for his brother. "Nah, she's Gabriel's _crush_." The way he says crush doesn't make Gabriel want to be smote down by God any less. If anything, it makes his beg for the process to _please speed up._

It doesn't happen, no matter how much begging or praying Gabriel does.

"Luci," Gabriel grits out through clenched teeth, shooting daggers at his brother. It's meant to be a warning, but all it does is make Lucifer laugh.

"Oh don't be so embarrassed, Gabe!" he teases. He turns to look over at Eve. "She's this girl he's been crushing on for a while but hasn't had the guts to properly ask her out. I had to steal his phone and do it for him," Lucifer explains, and Gabriel's grip on his fork tightens.

"Aw, that's sweet," Eve says. "You should tell her how you feel Gabriel. Who knows? She might actually like you back." The brunette gives him a sweet smile and _fuck, _why isn't anyone at the table changing the subject? Does he have to do everything himself?

Apparently yes, he does have to, Gabriel realizes, when he turns to Michael and Raphael for help and gets none. _Fine. I'll remember this for later,_ he thinks with a huff.

"Enough about me. Eve, tell me more about yourself," says Gabriel in hopes of changing the subject. "What are you studying at university?"

It's a weak effort to put the spotlight on him elsewhere, and Eve seems to catch that as she answers his question, talking a bit more about herself, and Gabriel pointedly ignores his brother's gaze. He knows the moment there's a pause in the conversation, Lucifer will return to the topic of teasing Gabriel about his crush, but he hopes that'll not happen tonight (again).

The rest of the evening goes without much hiccup, in Gabriel's opinion, as he manages to keep his brother from straying back onto the topic of Gabriel's love life at least three times. Dinner ends smoothly and they then spend the next bit talking again in the living room and before Gabriel knows it, it's nine and Eve and Lucifer have to leave.

Eve stands up, hugging all of them goodbye and when she gets to Gabriel, says, "Sorry about dinner." She then hugs him tightly. Pulling away, she continues. "Here," she says in a soft voice while handing Gabriel a piece of paper with her number written on it. "In case you want help to ask that crush of yours out or just talk to someone who isn't all up in your business about it." She gives him a warm smile. "It was nice to meet you, Gabriel."

She then takes her light coat from Lucifer, putting it on. "Thank you for having me for dinner," Eve says to Gabriel and his other two brothers. "It was lovely."

Michael offers her a welcoming smile. "It was nice to finally meet you, Eve. Come back anytime."

Raphael nods, agreeing with his brother. "Have a safe trip you two."

When the duo are gone, Gabriel heads upstairs and immediately recounts the entire evening to his friends.

* * *

Gabriel's not sure how the last bit of the second semester passes so quickly because before he knows it, teachers are handing out the exam review packages and wrapping up the last bit of their courses. For Gabriel, it's been a relatively okay semester, with his only true worries being English and science as for both of those exams, they required understanding and applying specific concepts (well, more so in science, as English required him to remember key vocabulary that was related to poetry - as they had to analyze a poem for one half of their exam - as well as remember specific details from both the novel they read this year and the Shakespearean play to then compare and contrast in an essay. For science however, he had to remember specific concepts relating to chemistry, like balancing equations and different elements with contained more than one charge, the human systems for biology and light for physics).

With his gym exam, he had it a week before all his other exams, allowing for an additional day off in between his history and English one, allowing for some break for his poor wrist and hand. Plus, his gym teacher was so chill that he had said they were just gonna do it open book tomorrow and then switch papers later and mark each others since, a: it was a small class, and b: he didn't really want to mark the exams. History however was a different thing altogether, as while the rest of his teachers were wrapping up on their lessons with roughly two weeks before the first exam, his history teacher had just started teaching the world war two unit. They had spent a majority of the year focusing in world war one and the events prior in such detail that, with barely two weeks left, they had to cram another rather important and eventful war that Gabriel was dead certain was going to be on the exam.

This lead to most of Gabriel's time being directed either towards history - where he had gotten the notes from world war two from his friends in the previous semester and just started to teach himself the content ahead of time to get a better grasp on what he needed to know - or science, with reviewing the major units from the last few months. Gym he didn't bother studying for, managing to bullshit his way through it (much like religion last semester) and when he got the exam back the next day, got an eighty-five (which had been what he was aiming for so that was good). Studying for English was for basically the two break days between his history exam and his English exams (gym would've fallen on one of those days and they also had the Wednesday off of that week to allow for some break in between. This left Gabriel's exam schedule at science, history, break day 1, break day 2, and then English), being pushed aside for more pressing subjects.

Like last year, their movie nights are postponed for the time being, and Gabriel spends his days after school making notes and flashcards with Jess or quizzing Charlie on historical dates and figures. Some afternoons he goes to the library to review with Kevin and the rest of his friends, while other days he spends his free time at home looking over things, reaching out to Raphael for help if necessary. All in all, Gabriel can admit that this year's exams are much easier than last year (he's not sure if this is because he's gotten more used to the whole high school exams, or rather he just understands and enjoys the concepts he's learned this year in comparison to the last), and isn't quite dreading them as much as he thinks he should be - based on what high school movies have tried to convince him otherwise.

When the weekend leading up to his science exam rolls around, Gabriel's a bit stressed only because he remembers back to what some of his classmates who had science last semester said. They had complained that the exam was tricky, at least when it came to the physics section of it, mainly due to the fact their teacher had rushed through the lesson and ultimately decided to let the kids try and teach it more to themselves (Gabriel had the same teacher, and yes, he could attest that the science did spend most of the semester on chemistry and biology, although, when looking back at what they had to learn for physics, he can understand why).

However, when Monday nine o'clock actually comes and Gabriel is handed his exam with the instructions, "You may begin now," all that stress goes away. He works through the chemistry and biology portions of the exam without too much panicking, recognizing what most of the questions were asking of him (although he will admit, he fully bullshitted his way through the questions about magnification. He had remembered how to label the microscope - mostly- but as for calculating magnifications? That had been purely guesses with a _i think this looks kinda like the examples we did in class_). The physics section too isn't as difficult as he had assumed it might be, seeing as how they spent such little time on it, and while there are some questions he doesn't quite know the answer to, or recognize what it's fully asking, he is able to answer a few questions completely (and confidently) and, when handing it in at ten-thirty, can for sure say he got at least an eighty-five, if not ninety on that exam.

History, like expected, was lots of writing and more difficult (they had gotten the review package for the exam on the Friday before exams, leaving the whole class to try and finish a huge ass package before their exam on Tuesday) but Gabriel survives it and welcomes the two days of break in between this exam and English where he can sleep, rest his hand, and then hope the essay prompt isn't absolutely stupid.

(It ends up being relatively easy, asking only for him to take the play they learned, _Macbeth,_ and their novel, _Lord of the Flies, _and compare and contrast one element in both of them. Gabriel finishes that essay with ten minutes to spare.)

After he leaves his last exam, Gabriel pulls out his phone, sending a group text to his friends as he heads to his locker.

* * *

**GABRIEL:** finally done! We gonna do the same thing as last yr?

**CHARLIE:** sure! Save us a table?

**GABRIEL: **kay

**GABRIEL:** not buying ur drink tho Charls

**CHARLIE: **rude

* * *

He smiles, pocketing his phone before turning down the hall to get to his locker.

* * *

Gabriel spends most of the afternoon with his friends at Tim's, and when he finally gets back home, he finds that his brothers aren't home. It's not necessarily a bad thing, although it does mean Gabriel can't brag straight to Lucifer's face about how he's made yet another year without having a girlfriend so he does the next best thing.

Dropping his bag by the door and kicking off his shoes, Gabriel pulls out his phone from his pocket.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: two years down motherfucker, two more to go

* * *

He then makes his way to the living room to claim stake over the tv before anyone else gets home to steal it. The phone in his hand buzzes. Plopping down onto the couch and spreading out, he unlocking the phone, he reads his brother's text.

* * *

**LUCIFER:** whatever there's still two yrs left

* * *

Gabriel laughs, leaving him on read and turning the TV on instead.

* * *

**I'm not a big fan of how I had to format this with the texts but since I can't do the same formatting here like I did on Ao3, y'all are gonna have to deal with this rather than having the texts centered. I'm sorry.**

**Also, forgot to mention this in the last chapter but if you enjoy this, leave a comment and/or favourite and let me know what you thought of this! **

**-Twist**


	3. Grade 11

**No major warnings for this chapter.**

**A new character enters the ring. Want a fun challenge? Count how many different nicknames I gave Sam through this chapter and the next. Also, watch ya girl show off her bio skills and french skills (translations at the end). Enjoy!**

* * *

When grade eleven comes 'round, Gabriel notices the slight shift in his friend dynamic and while he doesn't find himself having any dates that go further than the accidental first one, it's not to be said about his friends or classmates. He, within the first few days notices how his friends do have the focus on relationships in the back of their minds, and wonders where it had come from. It's not like it hasn't always been there, but suddenly, it's like some switch was turned on in a number of his classmates heads as they suddenly are in relationships or could be heard bemusing about their crushes still having not noticed them - it makes him wonder if everyone was like this minus him because he had noticed even as they had hung out during the summer how Dorothy and Charlie were watching each other, stealing glimpses when the other wasn't looking and Gabriel, although having nothing against it, hadn't understood it. Not the liking another girl part, that was obvious. More the "_why is everyone so focused on having a relationship?_" - and it makes him wonder more about Lucifer's words.

He understood his brother, from like grade six, maybe even younger, had had such a focus and drive to impress girls. Maybe it was part of his attention seeking behaviour, maybe something else, but Gabriel didn't quite understand the appeal of a relationship. At least not that of the romantic nature. Lucifer had been insistent, saying how would find someone who'd make him rethink his ideas about love and relationships, but Gabriel had doubted them. Lucifer insisted things would change, that some girl would catch his eye, and believed Gabriel could easily throw himself at that girl with the same fervor he did with other things he enjoyed, like movies or sweets, but that didn't happen. He didn't find his lack of interest in the other sex - or even same sex - changing, making an appearance any time in the last three years, and something told him that the next two years wouldn't be any different.

His friends went through relationships, break ups and make ups and even as he watched Charlie and Dorothy get closer and closer, as Kevin talked about his girlfriend (which he had been dating since grade nine that Jess had thought was cute), and Jess' crushes she talked about, nothing changed for Gabriel. He remained, in his friend group, the one constant. Never dating, never mentioning crushes or lovers. Jut plain, single Gabriel who, while giving off the air of a natural flirt - and sometimes he was, mostly without trying - he was anything but when presented with a romantic situation. He was still the same. No crushes, no lovers, not even any lust for another. Instead, he was rather fine with his lack of romantic and sexual attraction to anyone, preferring the friendships he had instead.

Something he didn't understand; why people viewed it as less important compared to having a romantic relationship. After all, a lover was like a best friend whom you just did a bit more with, even in an asexual relationship.

* * *

"Seriously, Gabriel," Kevin huffs as he watches Amelia from their fourth period chemistry class leave, looking dejected.

She had approached Gabriel almost immediately after the three had entered the cafeteria for lunch, tapping Gabriel on the shoulder and drawing him away from his conversation with Kevin and Charlie, citing that she needed to ask him something. Then, not even two minutes later, her bright, nervous smile was gone and so was she, and Gabriel rejoined his friends again.

"How?" Kevin continues, leaning forwards slightly. One hand still clutches the biology test they had just gotten back, while the other dumps his backpack rather unceremoniously onto the floor.

"How what, Kev?" Gabriel asks as he pulls out his lunch. "How'd I get full marks for seven in the short answer?" He figures that was what Kevin had been asking about, seeing as prior to Amelia asking to talk to Gabriel, that was what the trio had been discussing. Like always, they've spent their lunch after a test going over their answers, usually trying to figure out where they had lost those one or two marks on a short answer that had prevented them from getting perfect for the particular question. "Did you remember to differentiate between the various DNA _polymerases_ when discussing DNA replication? Because I know she had said if we didn't state it was DNA _Polymerase III_ that helped with building the daughter strand for the DNA then we'd lose points, especially if you mentioned how it couldn't start building on it's own on the leading or lagging strand and instead needed the RNA primer to be placed first for it to attach to."

"No, it's not that," Kevin says, shaking his head. "What I was asking was that I don't get how all these girls keep coming up to you, not only just this year but last year as well and keep asking you out only for you to turn them down." He pauses, before adding, "And I lost half marks because I forgot DNA _ligase _when helping to attach the Okazaki fragments, not because of the DNA _polymerase III _part."

Gabriel gives him a shrug from where he sits across the table, an empty space between him and Charlie. He pulls out his sandwich, before saying, "Guess none of them have that one thing that, ya know, the thing that stuck with me and made me want to date them." He then takes a bite of his sandwich, and mouth still full, adds, "If that makes any sense."

Charlie gave him a disgusted look for talking with food in his mouth and Gabriel swallows it, giving her a partially apologetic look - not that's he's truly sorry. They both know in this meal alone, it'll happen at least two more times and every day after today, just as it does every other day.

"Whatever, Mr. Picky," Kevin mumbled under his breath and Gabriel chuckles.

"You ain't jealous because Lilith asked me out, are you?"

Charlie gasps beside him, eyes wide. "Holy shit. Lilith asked you out? Lilith? Like _the _Lilith, blonde hair, hot, definitely could kill a man with her eyeliner, Lilith?" She exclaims, not exactly speaking very quietly in her moment of shock. "And? Don't tell me you turned her down."

"I did," Gabriel says, in a tone that suggests this isn't as big of a deal as Charlie is making it out to be.

Within seconds, Charlie is left mouth wide open, gaping much like a fish and continues to act this way when Dorothy sits down between the two of them, moments later. Her cheeks are pink from the wind and cold outside, and, as she turns to look at Charlie, frowns and then looks over at Gabriel.

"How'd you break my girlfriend?" she asks calmly and Gabriel gives her an innocent look.

"I'm not too sure, Dorothy. I mean, one moment I'm telling her I turned down Lilith as a date to Prom and the next thing I know, she's like that," Gabriel explains, gesturing to Charlie's expression and even Dorothy looks surprised.

Her reaction isn't quite like Charlie's, but she is caught off guard. "_You turned down Lilith_? Wow."

He nods and Dorothy, glancing over at Charlie says, "Close your mouth babe. You're gonna catch flies," which snaps Charlie out of it.

"When'd she ask you?" Kevin asks.

"Yesterday." Gabriel takes another bite of his sandwich. "But I told her I didn't want to go with her. Said I'd probably skip prom and have a Harry Potter marathon."

"I swear Novak, you turn down girls faster than almost any guy, or girl, in this school can get one," Charlie says, no longer speechless. "But you gotta tell me everything. Right now."

He chuckles at her comment. Gabriel knows she's right - he, alongside Lucifer's set-up dates (that he will continue to deny were just that, and instead purely coincidental to their bet) that'd sprouted from the bet, had been approached by a few girls, both in their year and the ones above/below to go on a date with him. He usually shrugs them off, not wanting to go on a date with the most of the time, because be felt bad that he odd time he had, Gabriel felt like he was leading them on. If he said yes, he knew it would end badly. Not bad as in they'd end the date in tears and screaming like you might imagine in some poorly made romcom but rather with someone thinking this date would lead someplace further, developing into a potential for a second or third date and when Gabriel would have to explain to them it wouldn't, there would be the awkwardness of seeing each other again in class or in the halls that Gabriel would rather just avoid.

After all, he had already gone through the horrendously awkward situation of Gabriel going on a date with another while having no actual clue it was anything of the romantic nature that resulted in a very difficult and long semester of math sitting beside that individual.

Truthfully, all dating shit aside, Gabriel could guarantee that, had it been anyone else at school that Gabriel had turned down, both Charlie and Kevin's reactions would've been much different. Lilith, a grade above them, had quite the reputation in their school - head cheerleader, vice president of SAC, on the girl's volleyball team - and there isn't a person in the school who didn't know who she was. Even if their only reference is her looks (which had earned her a spot on the school's fashion show exec in only grade ten, despite exec positions normally being open to grade elevens and twelves).

So, to have Lilith, popular, beautiful, somewhat of a cross between Regina George and Heather Duke, _Lilith _approach Gabriel and ask him out to her prom isn't exactly your run of the mill, every day situation. Perhaps, he might've said yes, in another time (although something tells Gabriel he wouldn't, not just due to a lack of attraction to her, but due to her not so stellar personality) but he didn't. Bet aside.

Charlie is still staring at him, a mix of awe and shock at the idea that Lilith had not only tried to ask him but he refused.

"It really isn't that big of a deal," Gabriel explains to them, far too nonchalant in comparison to the expressions of the rest of the table. "She asked me, I said no. Simple as that."

"And? What was her reaction?" Kevin asks, curious, and Charlie nods vigorously in a _yes yes tell me what her reaction was!_ type of way

Even Dorothy, who had initially not appeared far too invested in what happened, is leaning forwards.

Gabriel shrugs, pulling out his lunch. "She just left. Was a bit huffy though - I don't think she'd ever had a guy say no to her before - but there wasn't any scene or bribery involved, so I'd say it didn't quite go down like a lead balloon?"

"What didn't go down like a lead balloon?"

They all turn at the sound of the voice to find Jess standing right behind Gabriel with a much taller boy about their age. He looks giant - although to be fair, any man over six feet is rather giant to Gabriel's 5'8 - but lacks the intimidating appearance that many can carry with such a tall height. Instead, the kid reminds Gabriel of a puppy, with his floppy brown hair and friendly, dark eyes.

"Gabriel turning down Lilith," Dorothy tells her, while Gabriel begins to dig into his lunch.

Jess nudges Kevin's bag over, taking the now empty spot on the bench and her companion takes a seat beside her, glancing almost nervously at the rest of the people at the table. She then, not yet introducing her friend, looks over at Gabriel from across the table with raised eyebrows. "You got asked out by Lilith and turned her down? Woah. Can't say you didn't make a good decision. Oh! I almost forgot!" Gesturing to the boy beside her, she says, "guys, this is Sam. He's in my Latin class this year and I invited him to come and sit with us. He's chill." Turning to Sam, she continues: "Sam, this is Charlie, Kevin, Dorothy - Charlie's girlfriend - and the most annoying human being you'll ever meet."

As she mentions each name, each person gives a polite wave.

Gabriel however, rather than choosing to wave, places a hand over his chest in mock shock. "Most annoying person you've ever met? That's so sweet, Jess! I'm so proud to have that position in your life."

Everyone laughs at that, even Sam, and Gabriel watches as the uneasiness seems to vanish from him. Jess fondly rolls her eyes, having expected nothing less from Gabriel.

Sam, despite the laughter, still appears to Gabriel as the quiet and nerdy type that doesn't talk too often, so to hear him shoot back: "So should I call you the 'most-annoying-person-ever' as well or do you happen to go by a shorter name? Nickname perhaps?" it catches him off guard for a moment. Then, catching the joke, he grins.

"Gabriel works."

* * *

Lunch with Sam runs smoothly and Gabriel finds himself quickly understanding why day one, Jess had invited him to sit with them at their table. The kid is charming - a good balance of nerdy, geeky, and fun that doesn't bug Gabriel like others might. In fact, Sam, after a round of twenty questions by both Charlie and Gabriel, had been discovered to have quite a few similar preferences to the others in the friend group. He's not only a huge Tolkien fan - Charlie had been quite excited about learning that, even more so when Sam recognized a quote from the Hobbit Charlie had made later on in the week unintentionally - but quite a big Marvel and Star Wars fan, too.

"How did we not stumble upon you earlier?" Charlie asks in a joking manner, and Sam, giving her a smile, shrugs.

"Kansas?" he replies, Sam then turns to his backpack, pulling out his chemistry notebook to revise yesterday's notes before today's class.

"Wait, you just moved here? In grade eleven?" Kevin asks, and Sam nods.

"We moved up from Lawrence after my mom's accident. It honestly wasn't as bad as I first thought it might be, having to switch schools so late into high school."

Jess gives him a sympathetic look. "Your mom doing better now?" She says this with some hesitation, knowing she's possibly threading onto a sensitive topic and doesn't want to upset Sam.

Sam, catching her hesitance, offers her a small smile and nod. At that, the whole table seems to sigh in relief - Gabriel hadn't even noticed at first they were all holding their metaphorical breaths, waiting to hear about his mom.

"Yeah. Things haven't been easy for either of my parents the last few months and it'll probably still be hard for a while after but she's doing much better than we all thought," Sam tells them. "The doctors say where she's at right now is more than any of them expected."

Dorothy smiles brightly. "That's awesome! Send her our love, yeah?" After seeing Sam's nod, she takes the chance to lighten the mood of the table by directing the conversation's focus elsewhere (which Sam is grateful for, although never voicing that). "So, what's the plan for Friday? We still gonna meet at your place again Gabe or…?" She trails off, looking at him.

"Sure. My brothers should be gone again this weekend."

More often than not, they chose Gabriel's house for their movie nights, not only because of his large living room (although that is a huge factor that played a part in the decision on where to have their practically weekend-long sleepovers), but due to the fact that Gabriel's three older brothers were almost always out of the house, what with Lucifer and Michael in university and Raphael in grade twelve with 'much more important things to do' - his words, not Gabriel's - and his father off doing whatever he actually does. Thus, it became the ideal place to hang out with little worry for interruptions, tons of food and no judgement or hovering by family members.

Sam furrows his brow, glancing between the rest of the table members with confusion, and Kevin catches right away.

"Shit, I completely forgot to explain, Sam!"

Dorothy looks a bit embarrassed, cheeks flushed pink. "Oops, sorry, Sam."

"It's all good. What's happening Friday?"

"Every other Friday - or once a month, depending on the month - we have a movie night where we all meet up at someone's house and basically end up staying the night for a movie marathon. It's usually at Gabe's because his brothers and dad are always out of the house and don't care too much about how many people come over," Kevin explains to Sam.

"Minus Lucifer." Charlie says this while trying to disguise it as a cough and Gabriel, who heard it, can't help but agree.

"True." He then turns to Sam. "We haven't picked yet our theme for this movie night but if you got any suggestions, series are usually the best."

Sam seems to think for a moment, running through the movies he has at home in his head. "I've got all the Marvel movies. I could bring those for us to watch," he suggests to the group and Jess grins.

"Sounds perfect!"

"You, Samsquatch, are a bigger geek than Charls, I swear," Gabriel laughs, and Kevin joins in on the laughter while Charlie looks at Sam thoroughly offended.

"Excuse me? I'm sorry, Sam, but that's my title that I've earned and you're not taking it from me," Charlie warns, leaning in close.

Sam raises his hands in a defensive gesture, as if to surrender to her, and Charlie, who has chosen to glare at him at the same time, has the corners of her scowl turn upwards. It falters as she tries to continue pretending to be upset, but within moments, it's gone, replaced by a smile. He nudges her shoulder, returning the action.

"You better still bring your marvel movies, Sam," she says.

"Alright." He then pauses, going silent for a moment while Dorothy exclaims how long it's been since she had last seen any of the Captain America movies. "Wait," he then says, all eyes on him. "Did... Did you just call me Samsquatch? Like, a combo of my name and sasquatch?"

Gabriel gives him a funny look. "Uh...yeah?"

"Why?"

Gabriel is still a bit confused, mostly that Sam caught the nickname, and also that he wants an explanation about the particular choice of nickname. More often that not, Gabriel would give people nicknames without a second thought. They just slip out and most of his friend group doesn't blink an eye at them so to have Sam point it out has thrown him off. "Because you're, like, a freakin' giant, firstly. Also, you got this long, floppy hair that kinda reminds me of a sasquatch," he explains, and Sam gives him a soft, "Oh," as if not quite sure how to respond to Gabriel's explanation. So he continues:

"Don't worry - it's nothing bad. I always give my friends or people I'm close with nicknames, mostly without realizing it. It just kinda happens, you see. If you hate it though, I can stop." The last part is added in a hurry, but Sam shakes his head.

"I don't mind it," he tells Gabriel, without any frown or look of disgust at the nickname or idea of future ones. It gets Gabriel thinking that perhaps he doesn't mind the odd nickname or two, or at least, just not this one. "It's just... normally I just get called Sammy, so that surprised me that someone would give me a nickname longer than my actual name."

Kevin is the one who speaks up, rather than Gabriel, saying, "You make it sound like it's near impossible to create nicknames from your name."

Sam shrugs. "Perhaps. I've never given it much thought."

"Oh no," Jess murmurs and they all look over at her, who in turn was staring at Gabriel. She had caught the mischievous glint in Gabriel's gaze at Sam's words and knowing her friend, it sounded like a challenge,

And a challenge it is, for Gabriel. Sam appears convinced it isn't possible to produce a number of nicknames for his name, and that causes Gabriel's competitive nature to slink forwards, smirking dangerously. If Sam thinks it isn't possible, Gabriel is going to prove him wrong.

"You sure about that, Samalam? You might wanna get yourself a pen and a piece of paper to write them all down - it's gonna be a long list."

Sam laughs at Gabriel's joyful tone. "Sure, if you say so."

Gabriel's smirk seems to grow, and he then focuses on the rest of the group at the table. "So, if you guys want, come over on Friday right after school. Unless you need to stop by your house for anything first, then aim for like five o'clock ish? Honestly, the time doesn't matter too much, just show up whenever," he explains and okays could be heard around the table as each are fine with the time set for Friday.

"Just send me your address before hand, okay?"

"Sure, Sam-a-lamb," he replies, using yet another nickname and Sam, if he's noticed, doesn't say anything.

(Gabriel will learn later that Sam had actually been true to his word, writing down every nickname Gabriel had called him in his phone's notes since they had made their little "challenge")

"Get ready for a weekend of pizza, chips, sugar and superheroes," Gabriel tells them in a cheerful tone, and Charlie raises her Coke in a form of salut.

"Fuck yea, cheers." She then takes a large gulp of the pop and the others, following in suit, do so too - albeit first taking the chance to laugh at her for beginning to cough as it goes down the wrong pipe.

* * *

"So, how's Amanda?" Lucifer asks one day, out of the blue and Gabriel gets so caught off guard that he almost asks, "Who?"

He catches himself though before he can say that, and instead replies, "She moved away."

Lucifer gives him a suspicious look as if not buying what Gabriel just said. "_Sure_. She _'moved away'_"

He can practically hear the air quotes in his brother's words and Gabriel shrugs.

His brother is right to assume it's a lie. Mainly due to the fact it was. Gabriel had talked with Madison back in May, not long after Lucifer had brought Eve home to meet the rest of them and said they didn't need to continue this to the next year.

_"What you gonna tell Lucifer then when he asks about this crush of yours?" Madison had asked as the two stood outside the school, waiting for the bus. _

_"I'll just say I don't like her anymore. Or she moved away," he answered, not caring too much about the specifics. Both were logical and totally possible things that could happen and most people wouldn't bat an eye at it. _

"It's the truth."

"You don't seem too heartbroken about all of it," his brother pointed out.

"Honestly I just don't think I had a crush on her anymore, back in like may, June," he lied easily. "And when she said she was leaving," Gabriel continued, "I guess I just realized things would never happen between us beyond one or two dates."

"Wasn't that just deep," Lucifer muttered, and Michael, who had just walked in with his arms full of groceries raises a brow at Lucifer.

"Are you still on Gabriel about not having a girlfriend?" He asked, walking past where the two of them sat at the table to go into the kitchen. "You didn't have a girlfriend either until rather recently."

Gabriel nods. " Mikey, Luci's being mean and making fun of me, especially right after the girl I had a crush on moved away," he whined and Lucifer smacked him on the arm.

"Oh shut up. Besides, you said you didn't even have a crush on her anymore!"

"Ehh, detail." Gabriel waves his hand, as if brushing off the comment. "That's not the point."

Michael gives a sigh, one that Gabriel's categorized as the "_i'm-just-too-done-with-this-shit-and-can-both-of-you-please-just-act-your-age-for-once._"

(Gabriel's categorized all of his brother's sighs, knowing which ones were directed specifically to him, and for what, as well as the general ones or those reserved for just Lucifer. There were the _just generally disappointed_ sighs, the _I'm holding back from smacking you from sheer idiocy from what you just said_ sighs and the _not quite a sigh_ _but more of a full body sigh_ sighs that followed whenever Lucifer tried to logically justify something stupid he just did.)

"Lucifer, just…" he trails off and pinches the bridge of his nose with his one free hand. "Just stop pestering Gabriel about his love life. And Gabriel -" Michael turned to look at him. "Stop antagonizing him."

With that, he then focused on putting away the groceries. Gabriel, glancing at his brother, gave a knowing smirk that was easily matched. Both knew the other wasn't going to listen to a word Michael just said - and Michael probably knew that too.

* * *

"_Je veux mourir," _Gabriel groans, as he sits down beside Sam on the bench at their table.

Sam looks up from his book, and if he's fazed by the chance of language, Gabriel can't tell. Rather than trying to reassure Gabriel, he plays along with his theatrics.

"_Moi aussi," _Sam replied.

No, _pourquoi Gabriel? _ Or: _Gabriel, tu es très dramatique. _He didn't even get a _mon cher ami _ in there either. All Gabriel got was basically "same".

He huffed, trying to stifle his yawn in doing so. "Sam," Gabriel whined, leaning against Sam's shoulder.

"Is that all the french you know?" Sam retorts with a grin, and Gabriel doesn't answer.

It's not quite the only french he knows - he does pay attention in french class, just that he tends to resort to the same few sentences or phrases and nothing else to express his "struggles" at particular moments - but he does quite like the particular phrase.

However, to be a little shit, Gabriel replies with, "_non" _and Sam snorts.

"_D'accord_. Okay." He puts down his book, and focuses on Gabriel. "So, is something bothering you or are you just being your dramatic self?"

He's gotten quite used to Gabriel's theatrical personality at times, and knew, at times, the shorter man could be over the top, purely because he wanted to. "You should go into acting," Sam had mentioned on a passing, one day when they had still barely knew each other. His friends had just laughed ii been a pretty good day, I just would rather not have to deal with my classes, or school in general."

His friend nodded in understanding. "It's nearly the weekend, at least. You got any plans?"

Sam takes the chance, when Gabriel shakes his head, to offer if he wants to go out to the movies with him and see the latest marvel movie that just came out. "I was also going to ask the others to see if they wanted to come as well to watch Infinity War," he adds, more as a way to divert this from being mistaken as a date.

He has nothing against it being considered a date, Sam had realized not too long he had a crush on Gabriel, but he wasn't sure where the other's stance was on relationships and if he even liked guys so Sam had what he liked to deem as "friend dates", which were Sam initially asking Gabriel to go out with him to do something, and then inviting another friend out as well to avoid it appearing suspicious to Gabriel. It had yet to, but he'd rather not having it that Gabriel was straight, and was uncomfortable with the idea of Sam having a crush on him.

"Sweet. I'm free Saturday, and I'm pretty sure the others are too," Gabriel replied. "You wanna find a movie time and then text the group chat?"

_No. I want it just to be us, not everyone else. _But Sam doesn't say that. Instead, it's: "Yeah, sure."

Gabriel grinned. "Cool. Can't wait, Samsung! And we can place bets beforehand about who's gonna make it to the end and who won't. I heard rumours someone dies within the first fifteen minutes, at least, so this is gonna hurt."

Sam just nods and smiles along, despite wanting to sigh in defeat. It could be worse, the situation, so Sam takes what he can get: a movie with Gabriel and their friends. As friends. Nothing more.

* * *

New Years comes around, and unlike the last two times, the Novak kids aren't at some family friend's house for a party. Instead, Gabriel and his friends chose to stay back and chill at Gabriel's house, having their own party. Lucifer, of course, was there because, looking back at it now, Gabriel realized his brother could be likened to a mosquito or that annoying moth-fly thing that you didn't realize what in your room until it decided to continuous fly right around your face and now suddenly, regardless of what you tried, the stubborn thing wouldn't die - or in Lucifer's case, back off a bit. And you'd think, him being in university, having a girlfriend and a social life of his own, Lucifer would be off enjoy the huge amount of freedom he had, but that wasn't the case with Lucifer.

The second year university student, despite having an apartment with his girlfriend still visited, especially to remind Gabriel of their bet.

So naturally, at around eleven thirty, Lucifer comes into the house, calling out, "Gabe, we're home! You better not be stealing all of Dad's good booze," like he was coming home from work to his pet dog - or child. Or both.

Gabriel looks at his friends, giving a sigh. "We need to change the locks, I swear," he grumbles, and Charlie, who was drinking some _Fanta_ snorts, then proceeds to begin coughing. Still, Gabriel gets up from his spot on the couch and reluctantly goes to meet his brother by the front door. Knowing Lucifer, the fact that he both loved to party and that he viewed New Year's as free booze night, it was a bit odd he'd be back home at a reasonable hour, and not drunk outta his mind. That ultimately spelled: 'something's up' and most likely to do with their bet.

"Luci, I swear, what are you-" he begins as he turned around the corner into the foyer only to find Lucifer's girlfriend, Eve, there, hanging up her winter coat. "Eve?"

She turns around, still wearing a beanie, dark hair dotted with snowflakes and both her cheeks and nose pink. "Hi Gabriel. Sorry to crash your party and all. Luce said he just needed to grab one thing he forgot," Eve explains with an apologetic smile on her face. "We'll be gone soon."

Gabriel nods, suspicious of what his brother might've forgotten, and despite better judgement, goes upstairs to his brother's room to find out what he forgot. Climbing the stairs, Gabriel's mind plays out every scenario to which might've led his older brother to return at nearly midnight on New Year's Eve.

_What on earth could be so important that it couldn't wait until a more reasonable time?_

Gabriel wonders this as he reaches the top of the stairs. He turns left, going down the hallway to his older brother's closed door and without knocking - he'd regret that one day, but he hadn't walked in on anything too scarring yet and so Gabriel didn't bother to start knocking yet. There, he found his older brother rifling through the drawers of his desk, looking for something, and when he heard the door open, he looked up.

"Gabe!"

An easy grin spread across Lucifer's face at the sight of his little brother and Gabriel didn't like the look of it. He wondered if it were possible to turn around now and leave, pretending he didn't see anything or hear his brother even call his name. Turning, he tries to, but Lucifer catches his shoulder and whirls him back around.

"Nice try but that won't work. Take a seat, Gabe. You're just the man I was looking for."

Lucifer pushes him onto his bed and Gabriel eyes him carefully. He didn't trust his brother's tone - it was too cheerful. _Way _too cheerful.

"You sound like you're ready to murder me," Gabriel says slowly, and Lucifer laughs, pulling out a twenty-five dollars bill.

He waves the bill in front of Gabriel's face, and if Gabriel thought he was suspicious before, he definitely is now.

"I know this isn't money for pizza so is it drug money or something?"

"No," Lucifer says, giving him a sour face.

Gabriel pauses, staring at the money in front of him. "So then, what is it for?" He racks his brain for instances where his brother might owe him money - there's quite a few times but one: Lucifer would never pay him back that money, they both knew that; and two, even if he did, he owed Gabriel way more than twenty-five bucks. So then what was… _Wait._

"Are you paying me half of my earnings for the bet right now?" He asks, and now it's Gabriel who's grinning. Grade eleven would be ending in a few months and that left both brothers with about a year left on their bet. And so far, Gabriel was winning. "Aw, Luci! I didn't know you were already ready to throw in the towel so early! If I had known, I might've tried harder to mess with you!" Gabriel exclaims,ready to mess hardcore with his brother but Lucifer waves his other hand flippantly.

"Puh-_lease_, like I'd give up now. No, this is for our bet, still. I'm adding to the earnings."

"Oh?" Gabriel asks, raising a brow. "You afraid you're losing, brother?"

Lucifer scoffed. "Hardly. Rather, I'm preventing any loopholes."

_Interesting,_ Gabriel muses, and he folds his arms across his chest, pretending to appear bored but is instead rather curious.

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"An extra twenty-five bucks if you don't get laid. No sex, oral or otherwise. Not even making out. If you do, you owe me seventy-five bucks."

He wants to laugh. Of course his brother would think that by adding this, it'd help him win his bet. If only Lucifer understood people didn't always want to have sex.

"So no girlfriend for four years and no sex/making out either?" He repeats, and after getting a nod, Gabriel puts a hand out to shake. "Sounds like a deal. I'm still gonna win though."

Lucifer laughed. "You wish little brother. But you keep making deals with the devil and it's not gonna work in your favour!" He says in a sing song voice.

"We'll just have to see," Gabriel replies, shrugging. His brother takes his hand, and they shake, timing it perfectly as the clock on Lucifer's desk hits 12:00.

* * *

Not long after that, exam season kicks in and that becomes everyone's sole focus. Their movie nights were basically put on hold as teachers dumped essays and assignments and IA's on the grade elevens to try and wrap up the semester. It wasn't fun - it never was and Gabriel would rather just spend his time either locked in his room drawing or with his friends than be sitting and reading some dumb book for English about a boy going on a journey to find the mother who abandoned him and then maybe have sex with her (he gotten _fortunate_ enough to read _Kafka on the Shore, _much like his brother, for his class and had to write an essay talking about one element of that. Or, if they didn't want to read that book, the other options were about two tramps waiting for a guy named Godot who never showed up day and day again, or mother-fucking Oedipus - pun intended).

Sighing, Gabriel accepted his fate and the fact that since almost all of them had a different period four, they would nearly all starting a different exam come January seventeen. They had had a few study sessions in the last two weeks, as things were wrapping up and teachers began handing out review packages, but with now one week before the first exam, those had dispersed and turned into individual study time.

Currently, one week to his first exam, Gabriel had found himself reviewing his math notes - unenthusiastically, might he add, because even now, years later, Gabriel couldn't stand the subject, although his understanding of it has improved since grade ten (slightly) - head buried in a textbook he'd rather set on fire.(He would do so, but that meant he'd have to pay the head of the math department about one hundred bucks for the old thing and he wasn't gonna give them money and spend the rest of the days leading up to the exam without a textbook) Math wasn't even his first exam - it was actually biology - but he already was ahead of studying for biology and if he didn't start studying for math now, he wouldn't at all until the absolute last minute.

A buzz came from under some pieces of paper, and Gabriel, who had been in a dead-silent room prior to that, jumped. He had forgotten his phone was still on his desk and not lost somewhere on his bed, and with some shuffling of papers and notes, he found it with a blinking blue light signifying he had gotten a notification. Gabriel turns it on and unlocks it, noticing he had a new text from Sam.

* * *

**SAM**: You have English this semester, right?

* * *

Gabriel knew it'd be smarter to ignore the text and focus back on studying, but he had been looking at his math notes for about forty-five minutes uninterrupted - mostly- and needed a break. And this text was the perfect distraction from angles and stupid vectors.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: ya why?

**SAM**: You think you'd be able to come over and quiz me?

* * *

He began to type out a response but before he could finish, a second text appeared right below that one:

* * *

**SAM**: Or I can go to your house if it's too much

* * *

Gabriel rolled his eyes, chuckling at Sam's text.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: Just get your butt over here Moosey

**GABRIEL**: And you're helping me with math after

* * *

Sam's reply came quickly.

* * *

**SAM**: Thank you Gabe!

* * *

He could just from the text, Gabriel knew Sam had one of his big, goofy smiles - the type people would joke lit up whatever room he was in. Gabriel found himself smiling too.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: Door will be unlocked so just come up when you get here Sam-a-lam

* * *

After sending the text, Gabriel quickly closed his math notebook, fist pumping the air in celebration. Not only had he gotten lucky with having a good excuse to take a break from studying (without his brothers hovering to make sure he didn't procrastinate his studies) but he also got to spend time with a least one of his friends as the last few days had been rushed "hi's" as they passed in the halls before vanishing to the library or elsewhere to cram about five months' worth of learning into a couple days.

He spun twice around his wheelie office chair, giving a _whoop!_ before hopping off and gathering his math and English binders. One hand on the doorknob, he opened it only to pause, glancing down at what he was wearing. Having not left the house today or planning to see anyone, Gabriel had dressed himself in an old concert t-shirt he had stolen from Lucifer a few years back and a pair of slightly baggy, paint-stained sweatpants. It wasn't exactly the fanciest get-up and Gabriel moved at first towards his closet to change into something less 'I-just-woke-up' before stopping. This was, after all, only Sam coming over, not someone he had to impress, and had probably seen him in worse many other times. Plus, paired with the fact that they were going to be staying in Gabriel's house, there wasn't much of a reason to actually change and so Gabriel doesn't. Instead, he makes his way down to the living room with the two binders of notes to wait for Sam.

When Sam arrives, he's dressed in a similar outfit - old jeans and a worn _Doctor Who_ t-shirt. They set up fort in the living room fairly quickly, after kicking Lucifer out and stealing his chips, Gabriel taking the couch and Sam the floor beside the coffee table. Gabriel's stretched out rather comfortably across the length of the couch, propping himself up on one elbow when Sam hands him a rather thick binder.

"So what do I need to test you on Sammich?" He asked,opening it and leafing through the notes Sam had made.

"Godot," Sam begins. "I remember the teacher mentioned a comparison essay on the exam between it and another work from this year I remember some of the play but not all of it," he added and Gabriel nods, finding the section on the play.

"Gotcha," Gabriel said, "I really liked Godot."

Sam makes a face, looking like he sucked on a lemon. "Really? I found it kinda boring, especially when we went to go and see it."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I almost fell asleep a couple times during it. It was boring as shit," Gabriel admits, "But reading it was more interesting. Plus, I enjoyed all the inappropriate jokes and death jokes. You can't tell me it wasn't at least a bit entertaining, their whole bit where they are willing to kill each other then stop because they aren't even certain they have enough rope to support each other. Also that Godot might come tomorrow, so they have to wait for him beforehand."

"I just found all of it sad. Especially how Lucky was treated by Pozzo," Sam said, and Gabriel nodded.

"I _hated_ Pozzo. Dude deserved to suffer that much in act two. But it's existentialism, what else do you expect Samson?"

Sam mumbled something that sounded like, "I guess." Gabriel smirked, and looking down at the discussion questions on the page their teacher gave them, he reads one out. Sam gives him an answer, and then afterwards, said:

"Do you ever actually run out of nicknames? I know you mentioned before you could give me a ton of them but I swear this is like nickname number fifty-five. At least."

"Fifty-five?" Gabriel, with a grin, leaned forwards. "Have you been keeping count or something Samwise?" he teased, and Sam's cheeks and tear tips turned pink. (He had, but wasn't going to admit that to Gabriel)

"I, uh, well -" Sam stammered, unable to form a proper and intelligent response.

Gabriel gives a laugh, and saves him from answering by continuing to speak. "Relax gigantor! Just be flattered, only my favourite people get this many nicknames," he admits and somehow that makes Sam's blush darken.

"I still don't know how you can make up so many nicknames so easily."

"It's an art," he jokes.

"Sure, Gabe. _Sure._" Sam rolls his eyes, pretending to look annoyed but Gabriel sees right through it.

Gabriel laughs, golden eyes bright. "Gabe, huh?"

"It's not like there are a lot of nicknames for Gabriel!" Sam huffs, crossing his arms across his chest but Gabriel doesn't seem to mind, telling him instead how he likes it, and that makes Sam give him a big smile, dimples and all.

Then, after a bit, Gabriel says, "Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you came over here to study for English, not try to give me a nickname."

Sam reaches over, smacking Gabriel hard on the shoulder. "Shut up," he says, without any heat, and Gabriel understands it as: '_Whatever. Just continue, dumbass.'_ And so Gabriel does.

* * *

Sam left later that afternoon, thanking Gabriel for everything and only after closing the door did Gabriel smack his forehead, cursing. Pulling out his phone, he texted Sam that they better get together tomorrow so he could quiz him on his math before the exam on Friday. Both of them were in the same math class, and Sam, who was generally much better at the subject, could easily help him answer any questions. Plus, Kevin, who was also taking math this semester was busy studying for chemistry and Gabriel would hate to bother his friend.

His phone buzzed.

* * *

**SAM**: of course! Your house or mine?

**GABRIEL**: Mine. I don't wanna get changed

**SAM**: You could just come in your pyjamas, Gabe.

**SAM**: It's not like you haven't worn your pyjamas basically everywhere else

* * *

That, Gabriel had to admit, was pretty true. If he didn't have to get changed, Gabriel wouldn't. He could practically feel the eye roll from Sam in the text Sam had just sent. _Rude, _he sniffed.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: Don't roll your eyes at me Gigantor!

**GABRIEL**: Door better be unlocked at 10. I expect sugary sweets

* * *

He waited for about a minute, watching the screen before Sam's text bubble appeared.

* * *

**SAM**: Fine. You better plan on sharing them though

**GABRIEL**:I'll think about it. See ya tomorrow Samshine!

* * *

Gabriel laughs out loud to no one in particular, before turning off his phone and tossing it on his bed. _Back to studying. _

* * *

The next week passes fast, and before Gabriel knows it, his first exam is that day. Then, in a blink of an eye, the other two pass as well, leaving Gabriel with his final exam tomorrow. Gabriel also found his bed looking more and more appealing. Heck, literally any surface looked comfortable to him at this point, and while both he and Sam were reviewing their notes for their final exam, Calculus, Gabriel was using Sam's arm as a pillow. Yawning, Gabriel nuzzled into the fabric of Sam's shirt and the taller boy chuckled, knowing how exams were stressful on everyone and instead repeated the same question he had given Gabriel earlier.

"Seven," Gabriel mumbled sleepily, not even waiting for Sam to finish the question.

"Did you even hear what I said Gabe?" Sam asked, tearing his eyes away from the book to look at his sleepy companion and Gabriel shook his head.

"You're shirt's soft," he mumbled and Sam reached across the table to get a handful of pixie stix, holding them up to Gabriel's face.

Gabriel batted them away, saying something along the lines of: "No drugs. Drugs bad."

Sam put down the pixie sticks, yawning widely. There was no way they were gonna get any further studying done, Sam could just tell. "Okay, c'mon, let's go," Sam said, rolling his neck to relieve the stiffness before moving to get up. "We've done enough studying and at this rate, anything else won't stick." Gabriel, however, had other plans though and he clung to Sam's arm, not wanting him to go. "I'm not falling asleep at the table Gabriel."

"Shut up pillow. Pillows don't talk," Gabriel grumbled, smacking his shoulder without opening his eyes and Sam gave a sigh, too tired to fight with a half-asleep Gabriel.

He stood, stretching his arms over his head, and when Gabriel whined about Sam moving, scooped up his friend. Gabriel went silent, snuggling into the crook of Sam's neck, arms wrapped loosely around his neck. Sam smiled; liking the feel of Gabriel curled up in his arms and made his way to his room, collapsing onto his bed. Too tired to latter fast asleep against his side already.

Sam held his breath, not wanting to move and wake Gabriel. Instead, he lies back, enjoying the moment, chest feeling light and head dizzy at their position. If he was more daring, Sam might lean over and kiss the top of his hair, and the voice in his head says, "_do it!" _but he doesn't in fear that Gabriel might wake up, and ask what he's doing. So instead he just closed his eyes, and sleep comes quickly for him.

* * *

When they both ended up waking up the next day, there was hardly any awkwardness between the two as they hurried quickly to get changed (Gabriel often times left a spare pair of clothes at his house and Sam vice versa due to the amount of times they spent at the other's house) and grab a quick breakfast before shoving their notes in their bags, climbing into Gabriel's car, and driving off to their high school.

The drive was over far too quickly and the two grade elevens made their way to their calculus classroom, testing each other as they walked. They both had a good hour to review their final notes before the exam and Sam leaned against one of the lockers across from Gabriel.

"You ready?" He asked and Gabriel gave a half shrug as a response.

He was nervous, yes, but not the nervous where you forget everything you just studied for, heart racing, forget to breathe properly kind of nervous. He, basically, felt like he could do decent on the exam, maybe a seventy-five, eighty if lucky, but nowhere near a high ninety. If all else failed, however, Gabriel wasn't one without backups.

"I mean, if I do really bad, I'll probably drop out and move to Arizona and start a cactus farm, becoming a hermit for the rest of my life," Gabriel jokes, managing a smile, and Sam rolls his eyes, more than used to Gabriel's dramatics.

Pulling out his binder, Sam points out, "Gabriel, you manage to kill every plant you try to care for."

"That's why I'm growing cacti Moose," Gabriel huffs, crossing his arms. "They require barely any effort."

"Relax Gabe, you'll do great. You've got this."

The duo then went over Sam's notes, quizzing each other on the various formulas and trig ratios - "What's the point of learning these if I'm not going to be around triangles later in life? Do they actually think if I'm getting robbed I'll stop the thief with the power of the triangle?" "_Gabriel…_" "And unit circles, honestly. What kind of shit is that? And who thinks we won't have calculators wherever we go?" "If you say that whole speech again I will shove this pencil down your throat" (still, one year later, Gabriel hated trig, even after all the help he had received last year from Adam - which is the incident no one talks about. _Ever_ \- and would continue to tell whomever he could how much he despised the particular unit) - using what little time they had left to cram the last few details into their brains.

"Hey, I heard that if someone gets seriously injured no one has to take the exam," Gabriel began as they started to walk into the classroom once they're study time was up. Nine o'clock, time for their final exam and truthfully, one of the hardest ones. "So I was wondering who was going to take one for the team."

"Gabriel, no."

"C'mon Sam! I'll even let you stab me with a pencil. Anywhere you want," Gabriel looked at him pleadingly, golden eyes threatening to pull Sam in. But Sam didn't budge.

"No. I am not stabbing you with anything and we are taking this exam."

Gbariel gave a huff, mumbling, "good luck" as they dumped their bags in the front of the classroom and headed off to their separate seats. He wondered if it was too late to decide to be religious and start praying, and as Gabriel got the exam placed before him, he realized, _yup, it is. Ah, fuck it._

* * *

The first thing he said when walking outside of that exam was, "You'll visit me in Arizona, right Samster?"

Sam rolled his eyes from his spot leaning against the wall in his coat, holding Gabriel's jacket. He had finished earlier than Gabriel and had waited for him outside their calculus classroom so together, the two could drive back to Sam's house and relax with hot chocolate and a movie.

"You didn't do that bad Gabe. I'm sure you got a least a seventy-five," he told the other boy, who shook his head woefully.

"If only," he says in a wistful tone. Gabriel then sighed, rather dramatically, gazing off down the hallway.

"Tell me again why you aren't going into theatre?" Sam asks as they begin to walk down the hallway towards the school's parking lot. "You're pretty dramatic."

He got a shrug in return, as Gabriel looked back over at him. "I've been considering it, but I'm more interested in going into art and animation and shit," Gabriel tells him. "And I can't find any places that have good programs for both so I could double major."

They go down the stairwell to the first floor, slipping out the side doors to the parking lot. Gabriel had, while walking down the stairs, put on his coat - and almost proceeded to trip and fall head first down the stairs if not for Sam's quick reactions - since it had started to snow again and glared at the snow. "Why can't we get more snow?" he grumbled, stepping through the dirty grey snow. It wasn't even white anymore, due to all the slush and car driving over it.

"We hardly get any major snow days, and I'd kill for it to happen on an exam day and we end up skipping the exam," he added, looking away from the dirty now to Sam who seemed to disagree with what Gabriel said.

"While I'd love for a snow day, I doubt they'd cancel an exam for snow. We don't get enough to even warrant them considering that, ever."

"Mark my words, Sam -" Gabriel began to tug at the door handle of the passenger side, before Sam pressed the button and unlocked the car - "it will happen one day. I can tell."

They both climbed into the car and Sam gave a chuckle. "If you say so," he said in a tone that didn't believe his crush one bit.

They end up driving back to Gabriel's place, and the snow begins to pick up just as they pull into Gabriel's driveway.

"Bit late now," he huffed, glaring up at the clouds.

"Relax Gabe. You'll get your wish one day," said Sam as he climbed out of the car. Gabriel followed, snagging his bag from the back seat.

* * *

The only word for it, is that Lucifer is getting desperate. That, or his brother just wants to be an asshole. Either explanation works, truthfully.

Basically, what had happened is - and Gabriel doesn't know for sure how Lucifer managed to organize this - Gabriel woke up to a ton of flowers, teddy bears, and girls' numbers.

He had woken up on a Thursday morning, expecting to see snow out his window but was greeted instead with a garbage-bagged window (it was blacked out using a garbage bag and he couldn't tell if it was duct taped shut dorm the inside or outside. Either way, he felt like it wouldn't be a good way to find out the answer to his question). This had only been the start of everything, as , when he properly looked around his room, found his bed covered with hundreds of red sequins shaped like hearts. It hadn't even stopped there, as the mess continued onto the floor, where Gabriel found the whole thing covered in stuffed animals and flowers of all types, creating a sea of colour that reminded Gabriel's of either a claw game filled with prizes or a meadow.

And, if that wasn't enough, there were notes and pieces of paper taped to his walls that, upon closer inspection of one paper right by his bed, noticed a girl's number and name on it.

_He didn't_, Gabriel thought, in absolute shock.

He didn't dare move from the bed, eyes wide, and instead he reached for his phone. Taking a quick video because he's not quite sure what he's seeing, he then sends it to his friends in their group chat.

Gabriel's phone starts ringing a few moments later, and when he answers it, all Charlie says is, "Dude it looks like Valentine's Day threw up in your room."

_She has a point_, he muses. "I'm gonna kill Lucifer for this."

"Not that I wouldn't either if he did this but you're one hundred percent sure it's Lucifer?" She asks. "I mean, how did he even manage to plan this? And, wait…" Charlie's voice trails off, and he can hear shuffling. "Wait, are those girls' numbers taped to your wall?"

Gabriel sighs. "Yes."

"Dude, that's wild! Did he pay all of 'em to do that? Cause I doubt he knows enough people that would do this for free."

He can hear the awe in her voice at what his brother did, and on any other day, he'd be impressed. Right now, however, Gabriel is surrounded by sequins, trying to figure out how he's going to clean all this up and make it on time for school.

_Shit… _he realizes. There's a chance that some of these girls who have their names and numbers on his walls go to his school, whether or not they're in his grade, and might later approach him, asking if he got their note/flower/etc. Gabriel groans, and Charlie, who had forgotten was still on the phone asks what's wrong.

"I can't go to school Charls," he explained, and when she asked why, he told her what he just realized.

"Oh damn. You're gonna really have to kill your brother after this. This is a bit too far, no?"

"Yeah. Look, I'll call you later Charlie. I'm gonna try and start cleaning all this shit up. You and the gang are more than welcome to swing by and help if you'd rather play hooky instead," he says.

"Hmm, sounds tempting. We'll see." After that vague response, she hangs up and Gabriel sighed, looking again around the room.

As much as he's grateful his brother didn't use glitter, he figures sequins are still gonna be a bitch to get rid of.

* * *

"Gabe, you're brother's awful man. And that says something because Dean and I, we always get into these prank wars that usually end badly," Sam tells him as he goes around with a garbage bag, collecting all the stuffed animals. He hadn't been able to skip school due to a test today, but he came by right after school to help Gabriel.

"I'm literally going to be finding sequins everywhere for the next few years," Gabriel groaned from his place on the floor with the vacuum, trying to suck up as much of the sequins as possible.

"He's just getting desperate," Jess added from her spot on the bed where she stood, trying to get the last few papers off the walls. "He's gotta be, especially with the year winding down so much. We've got, what, just under three months left? Maybe a little more until exam prep starts to kick in and we're done for the year. That's gotta make him a bit nervous, especially since that'll mean next years the final year and if he fails, he has to pay up. So, if he tries to get it done now -"

"Then he won't have to be as desperate come September," Gabriel finishes, and she nods.

"Exactly."

He huffs. "Still he's an asshole for doing _this._"

Jess agrees, giving him a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, he is. But just be glad it wasn't actual glitter. I spilled a small container once -" she shuddered at the memory of the incident and even Gabriel winced. "We've still found glitter on our clothes, four years and one move later."

"Oh damn." Sam looks over at Gabriel. "Nah, you got lucky there."

"I'm still gonna kill him. Even after helping him get a nice, sweet girlfriend. He repays me with sequins and shit."

Both of his friends couldn't help but chuckle at Gabriel's obvious frustration, and he eventually gives in, focusing back on the task at hand - cleaning everything up.

"I just hope tomorrow isn't hella awkward," he adds.

Sam tells him it won't be, and while he sounds reassuring, Gabriel doesn't quite believe him. Not because Sam's untrustworthy, but mainly because Gabriel knows Lucifer, if he's going this big, is going to go all out.

He just begged to whoever was out there that it could somehow die out before exams. Even if it was only a little each day, that Gabriel would be able to take.

(It works out relatively okay when he goes back the next day - Lucifer does end up with sequins in all his dresser drawers so that made it a bit easier to bear the rough day ahead - but there are some girls who either approach him or stare at Gabriel when he walks down the hall. He does spend a few lunches chilling in the library with his friends to avoid being approach by some of the girls whose numbers had been plastered previously to his door - and also avoiding Charlie's all in good humour jokes about how he had promised her, if something like this would happen he would send her some of the numbers and it was only after she got an amazing girlfriend did that happen - however by Friday of the next week, it's died down fully and Gabriel can relax. He still hates his brother for what he did but keeps himself from doing anything, reminding himself that winning the bet and the money will all be worth it in the end.

He hopes.)

* * *

**French translations:**

_Je veux mourir -_ I want to die

_Moi aussi - _me too

_pourquoi Gabriel? - _why Gabriel

_Gabriel, tu es très dramatique. - _Gabriel you're very dramatic

_mon cher ami - _my dear friend

**Let me know if I should fix any of the translations! Also, I'm not sure if anyone actually reads these notes but seriously, if you want a depressing/bleak/nihilistic play, I highly suggest **_Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. _**Or, if you'd rather something a bit more existential,** _Middletown_ **is a favourite of mine too. **

**Fair warning, I can't write romance or crushes or any of that shit (aroace here) so if it feels stilted or awkward when it's Sam's perspective, oops?**

**Leave a comment and/or favourite if you liked this! You can also find this on Ao3 as the same name (my username's Broken_Twisted_Lullabies) or on tumblr (I'm twisted-pride)**

**-Twist**


	4. Grade 12

**All things must come to an end, like Gabriel's bet. Oh, and high school.**

**This was the longest of the four chapters at 25.3k words roughly (the others were around 10k with chapter 2 at 21k) and all the fun stuff go down this chapter. Also, yes, at the time of writing this final bit, I had forgotten about Sarah (if you remember her, props to you. I didn't), hence why she's never actually re-mentioned in this. **

**Also, there is a reference to aphobia online in this chapter. It's near the end, but it's just one paragraph. It starts at "Ever since he knew." It's only one part and never again and is in just a passing so it shouldn't upset anyone, but if it does, please send me a DM or comment and I'll tell you what happens afterwards.**

**Fun bonus: can you tell what I researched in this chapter? In the entirety of this fic, I searched two things: a list of universities in New York and the drinking age for Alberta (because I wasn't sure if it was the same as Quebec and I knew Alberta had an art school, but not Quebec that was close enough for Gabe to "consider" crossing the border for).**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Grade eleven ends before Gabriel knows it, and they fall right into exams so quickly Gabriel can't quite process what is happening. Granted, he, like for the first semester exams, he's extremely sleep deprived and running on sugar and junk food so it's understandable the passage of time wasn't something he could properly grasp.

Gabriel remembers bits and pieces of the days leading up to the exams, the late night sessions with his friends or at Sam's house, reviewing Chemistry and biology notes, hunched over a textbook while regretting why he chose to do a philosophy course for grade eleven rather than religion (which was so much easier, honestly, what was he thinking?). Other than that, it's all a blur that holds only fragments of memory. He remembers his exams even less, again due to lack of sleep, many late nights - and a few all nighters - and caffeine and red bulls, and, in his defense, when summer starts, everything school related is deleted from his brain (he swears!).

So Gabriel focuses on the all too quickly moving summer, enjoying every bit of sunshine, beach days and late nights watching movies at a drive-in by Sam's house. It's their last proper summer together, as high schoolers, and they intend to make the best of it. Even Lucifer backs off (or it appears he does, Gabriel's sure he's just lying in wait for something that'll top the mess of the teddy bear-sequin disaster.

When summer eventually ends, like always far too quickly for his liking, Gabriel doesn't find himself thinking, _this is it. _In fact, if he's honest, he doesn't quite think at how this is his last year in high school. Rather, his mind merely says this is another year of school. And, after that, it'll be summer, then four more for undergrad, and then possibly four more after that too. It's all just school, break, school, break...and the cycle continues. It's been a pattern he's been used to since he was, what? Five, six years old roughly? And now he's seventeen, to turn eighteen in a few months so it's all surreal to him.

"It's the end of an era," Sam joked when they all sat together in his backyard by the pool. "And yet, it doesn't feel like that at all."

All around him, heads had nodded. None of them could quite believe that high school was over, completely, in less than ten months.

"I want it to be over, but I don't," Charlie explained, and it might sound rather cryptic, but they all understood her. They wanted to leave high school, but having been so accustomed to the strict regime of elementary school and high school, all the vastness of university and college was overwhelming.

So, for a moment, rather than trying to think of what might happen next, of what would come after june and when september twenty-nineteen rolled around, they focused on just having one last summer evening together before school started.

And, Gabriel, in that moment, leaning against Sam, gasping for breath from something stupid and hilarious Dorothy had said, forgets all about the bet coming to an end. Just for a moment.

* * *

The ride to school the next day feels different, mostly because all six of them are packed into Charlie's seven passenger - it was her mother's _technically,_ but Charlie had named her and in turn, declared that if she named it and drove it more than the rest of her family, it was hers in every form except paperwork - singing along way too loudly to some throwbacks playlist Jess had made. The way it feels differently is not the fact they're all driving together to school - although, perhaps it could be that, as they've never done that before either - but mostly because this was the last bit of the countdown.

They were in the final stretch, with each day passing meaning one day closer to graduation and where exams in the past just meant they had finished the year and the next was coming soon, these exams this year were the final ones.

"You think we're gonna have similar teachers this year? Or are they gonna get us with completely different schedules?" Dorothy asked as the car pulled up into the school parking lot. They had all been wondering the same thing, hoping that perhaps they'd end this last year with having their friends in their classes. (it didn't have to be all their classes both semesters, but it would be nice to have a few shared classes.)

Kevin looked over at her. "I'm not sure. We've all picked similar classes so there has to be a chance at least two of us have shared classes, but at the same time," he says to the others, "we might all have wildly similar schedules with the same classes at different periods."

_He had a point_, Gabriel realized, and that made him want to sigh at the thought of, in their final year of high school, they wouldn't get to see each other beyond lunch and in the mornings/after school. He doesn't want that to happen, not after they had all spent so much of their schedules together, at least some way or another. "Who knows?" Gabriel still says. "There is still a chance. All I know for sure is that we won't have art or data management together."

Sam frowns as they get out of the car. "Why not data management? Aren't you taking that thing year?" He asked.

"Pff. Of course not! I didn't take...oh fuck." Gabriel stops right in the middle of the parking lot, causing Jess to nearly bump into him.

"You took data management didn't you?"

"I took data management." He groaned, wanting to bang his head against something hard, or, at the very least, smack himself in the face. "_Why? _Why must I torture myself like this?"

"Maybe it won't be as bad as last year," Kevin says in a hopeful tone and Gabriel scoffs. Kevin had found calculus relatively easy last year, as had Sam, hence why both had done double math (grade eleven math and calculus. Gabriel had too. Why? Who fucking knows. He can't honestly give a straight answer to that, only that he figured if he did good, he could show off to his math teacher last semester that he could get a better mark in calculus and...ah shit. Now he remembers why he signed up for data management) while Gabriel had struggled through most of it and hated every minute of his suffering.

Charlie, having caught up to him, nudged him."You good?"

"I just remembered why I took data management and I hate everything," he grumbled, and Dorothy, hiding her giggles, patted him sympathetically on the back.

"If it gets bad, just drop it. You already have enough math credits for your diploma," she reminded him and Gabriel nodded. _She was right. He could drop the course and still be perfectly fine to not only get his diploma but have enough courses for his top six. _

"Thanks Dorothy."

She gives him one last pat and then follows her girlfriend inside to snag their table before some niner does.

"C'mon Gabe. You'll survive," Sam says, trying to lighten his spirit, while the rest of his friends follow Charlie and Dorothy inside.

"I doubt it."

Still, he manages a smile when he meets Sam's eyes. It was difficult not to smile when Sam smiled, Gabriel found. His smile was infectious, and despite his darkened mood, Gabriel found himself feeling at least a bit better about the final school year before them.

(He does end up having data management first period, which sucks ass, but at least he has Sam in his class)

* * *

October comes 'round, and where in previous years, it had been all about last minute costume preparations and Halloween, for Gabriel and his friends it meant college and university open houses. Their school had already had a university fair, with a number of popular universities and colleges from the country sending in representatives to answer the high school students' questions and basically aimed to convince them that their particular university/college was the best.

Movie nights were postponed for the month, as Gabriel and his friends spent their weekends on long car drives to various universities and colleges in their state and those in neighbouring states. These trips make it all feel more real. They're nearing the end of their high school career and in about two months, they're gonna have to put in their applications to all the universities and colleges they want to go to. Then they play the waiting game.

Gabriel gives a huff as he glances out the window. He's supposed to be writing an essay for English class about _The Great Gatsby, _but in all honesty, his mind is elsewhere. He can't bother to focus on the decay of the American Dream Fitzgerald kept trying to stress, can't find himself wanting to turn his attention to the tragedy that is Jay Gatsby's life. It's a good novel, and he's quite enjoyed it when they were reading it in class, but now his minds on university. It's on the fact that Sam's in California visiting Stanford - Gabriel hadn't applied to any of the Ivy League schools. He's more than content to not deal with the stress of trying to get into one. Art school's already hard enough and he isn't willing to fork over his literal soul to try and get into Calarts or another extremely prestigious place - while Kevin's up visiting Columbia right now with Dorothy, leaving just him and Jess on their own. Even Charlie was off at MIT, checking out one of their programs.

It had been hard to picture them all going their separate ways after graduation, especially when it was still the first week of September, but now the picture isn't as hazy and fuzzy around the edges. It's much clearer, and he doesn't quite know how to feel.

On one hand, he wants his friends to get their dream programs, heading off to the universities and colleges they had been reaching for, for a while, but at the same time, the idea of not seeing them all the time, of the six of them all being unable to just meet up whenever or not being in his classes is a bit jarring. No more movie nights on Fridays, especially if Sam would be over in California (and skyping won't be the same), no more shared classes or lunches together sharing the latest gossip or news they heard.

He pulls out his phone and sends Jess a text.

* * *

**GABRIEL:** you visiting any unis this weekend?

* * *

Her response came a moment later:

* * *

**JESS:** nah. I went last weekend with my parents. And SUNY isn't until the Saturday before halloween

**JESS:** did you go up to that art school in Alberta yet? The one you mentioned last week?

**GABRIEL:** not yet. We're planning to go up after thanksgiving because Mike's got the week off for reading week and he said he'd come up with me

* * *

Jess is quiet for a moment, and Gabriel figures she's busy rereading his last text and trying not to point out the obvious.

Unlike all his other friends, Gabriel's father hadn't gone up with him to visit any of the universities or colleges. Usually, it had been Michael, with either Lucifer and/or Raphael tagging along as well, depending on their availability. Their father had just been too busy with work to put aside the time for the open houses, and Gabriel had learned through Raphael that no amount of reminders, even weeks and weeks in advance did anything to help. If anything, those made it worse when the inevitable rejection came in, their father giving a few words that formed a weak and half-assed apology about why he couldn't come.

(He wasn't even sure if their father had gone with Michael and Lucifer when they were visiting the open house. Gabriel thinks he had, at least to some of them because, as it was no secret in the family, their father favoured Lucifer over his other three sons, so, quite possibly, he could've gone with Lucifer whenever the blond had gone to any open houses and Michale just happened to tag along to some of them)

All of his friends have put together the fact Gabriel's father isn't around a lot, although only Jess and Charlie knew truly the extent of it, but none comment on it. And Jess doesn't with her next text.

* * *

**JESS:** cool cool. You think Lucifer's gonna somehow try and come along just to see if he could get banned from Canada?

**GABRIEL**: get kicked out? As if! The drinking age in Alberta's eighteen. If anything, he's gonna come up here to get drunk and we'll have to haul his drunk ass back home

* * *

Gabriel's oldest brothers were still only twenty (they had to wait until February to turn the legal drinking age - not that they let that stop them from starting beforehand) and since New York's legal drinking age was twenty-one, they still had to wait a few months before being legal in the eyes of the law with drinking. Lucifer, at least, was the one who regarded the law as a "suggestion", and Gabriel could guarantee if he mentioned the fact Canada had a much lower drinking age, even in Toronto where he had applied to OCAD and was planning to visit that week as well before flying back to New York, his brother would readily jump on the idea of joining.

* * *

**JESS:** that sounds like it'll be an interesting trip. All of you getting drunk in Canada

* * *

He can just imagine her sitting in her room, laughing her ass off at how it might look, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael dragging a drunk as a skunk Lucifer out of some bar in either Alberta or Toronto back to their hotel room, with Lucifer rambling on how he's going to become a Canadian citizen only just so that he can come drinking here all the time and why he hadn't thought of it earlier, and Michael secretly planning in his head how to ensure that never _ever _happened.

That gets Gabriel laughing, so hard in fact that there's tears in his eyes.

* * *

**GABRIEL:** fuck that needs to happen now

**JESS:** if i don't get videos our friendship is over

**GABRIEL:** deal

**GABRIEL**: also back on topic if ur not busy this weekend, wanna hang out?

**JESS:** sure, sounds good

**JESS:** now stop procrastinating Gabe

* * *

Gabriel rolls her eyes. Of course Jess knows he has an English essay to still finish that he's putting off right now.

* * *

**GABRIEL: **okay mother

**GABRIEL**: sweet! Demetres, two o'clock saturday?

* * *

Jess sent him a thumbs up, and no longer feeling so glum, he smiles before shutting off his phone and tossing it to the side. _Things'll be okay, _he tells himself and now focuses back on his essay he needs to finish tomorrow (yes, he's left it to the last minute, again. But he hasn't bothered to stop this habit yet).

* * *

After Halloween, November seems to pass just as fast as September does. He attributes this to it being their last year, and Gabriel can see why he'd hear the grade twelves always talk about how it was September one second and then you blinked and it was may.

For Gabriel and the rest of his friends, applications for university and colleges still aren't due for another month and a half, but Gabriel still finds himself stressed for the approaching deadlines. While having applied for regular programs within some of the universities he had been planning to go to, he also had portfolios he had to finish to submit for other art universities. Those portfolios were, while more interesting than writing an essay based off some dumb picture, trickier to assemble because they had such vast requirements. Some universities wanted sketchbooks showing practice on still life, on bodies and animals, how he used colour and his variety of artistic abilities while others wanted more finished pieces ranging from different sizes and mediums, and not all of them overlapped meaning Gabriel needed to assemble and create quite a few pieces of art.

Gabriel had started working on the portfolios since June, and when September came, had his two art teachers helping him assemble and critique his portfolios and pieces. Still, it seemed to never quite satisfy Gabriel and he kept pushing himself to perfect them as the deadline for December first crept even closer, his window of time shrinking smaller and smaller.

As of right now, he found himself staring off at a canvas of a half-finished painting, wanting to thrust his fist through the middle.

"Why can't I fucking art?" He asked Sam, who was on speakerphone currently. "It's all -" he then made a series of inaudible sounds and mumbles.

"Why not just aim to make it more abstract?" Sam suggests. He had no clue what the painting actually looked like, having only Gabriel's vague description to go off how it looked.

"I can't. It's just...ngk." He dropped his paint pallet on his desk, which causes the water in his water mug to shake, threatening to spill right over his phone. (It wasn't the wisest to put a phone near a cup of water but it was nearly eleven-thirty and Gabriel had been working on this painting for about two weeks and it still wasn't done.)

Gabriel then collapsed onto his bed, nearly landing on Jess, who had been lounging on it since receiving a call from a stressed out Gabriel to come over for moral support before something broke.

"What's it supposed to look like?" Jess asked, having not seen the final thumbnail Gabriel had decided on in his sketchbook. All she had to guess was what was painted on the canvas - a series of plants and flowers blooming from the center of the canvas, right around an empty black circle.

"I don't know anymore." His response was muffled as his face was pressed into the pillow. "Maybe I should just trash it. Paint something else for the larger painting aspect," Gabriel continued, rolling over to his side so both Jess and Sam could hear him properly.

"Isn't the deadline to send in the portfolio in like two weeks?" Sam's voice asked from over the phone and Gabriel gave a sigh.

"Yeah. Maybe I should just use an old painting from class. Like that parody painting I did for the grade ten exam."

Jess frowned. "I thought you were already including that. And won't they look at the dates of when they were made and realizing your only large painting was from two years ago?"

She had a point, and Gabriel hated that. He had finished all the other aspects of the portfolio - the sculpture, some computer animation and digital art, sketches and studies, paintings and drawings in various mediums and even some mixed mediums. All that was left was a larger painting, which, currently, was kicking Gabriel's ass.

"_Fuck. _Do I really need to apply to an art school in New York? I could go to Alberta. Or, fuck it, I'll sell my soul for debt until I die and get into Calarts. I've already sent in my sketchbook and portfolio to them anyways," He says out loud and Jess gives him a look - he's certain Sam would give him one as well if it weren't for him not being present and instead only on a phone call.

"Gabriel Novak, you are not going to let some painting get the best of you," Jess said in a stern voice, completely serious. Gabriel smiled weakly, grateful to have such a good friend like her.

"She's right. Maybe you just need some sleep. You said you've been working on this since eight this morning. I'm pretty sure you're delirious and need some rest. Then you can finish it in the morning," Sam added.

_God,_ Gabriel wanted to, but it felt like giving up. Plus, he was certain the painting would haunt him in his sleep. (He told his friends just that and they broke into laughter)

"All I need is to figure out what the fuck I'm actually doing for this piece," Gabriel told them when their laughter died down.

"Maybe a name will help? What's it called?" Sam suggested and Gabriel looked at him blankly.

"Leaves?" he suggests, sounding unsure. "Fuck if I know. It just somehow looks like fucking Eden or some biblical shit."

Sam looks over at him. "Why not do it that then?"

Gabriel opens his mouth, then closes it. He runs Sam's idea through his brain. It's actually not that bad, and Gabriel can fill the rest of the canvas, having no white remaining, and with the black, paint a black snake in the center of the circle, wrapping around an apple and looking like it was trying to convince the viewer to take a bite.

"Holy fuck SamIAm, that's genius. I fucking love you," he exclaims, wishing his friend was here to hug him. But Sam's at home, in his bed, and so Gabriel resorts to comments and what could be compliments.

With new found enthusiasm, Gabriel picks up his sketchbook, flipping through the pages until it lands on his thumbnail. Then, he grabs a black sharpie, outlining the snake wrapping around the black circle in the center of the leaves, having it appear and disappear with the leaves of the background. The apple follows after, with a red marker, drawn in the center of the empty circle, and then, with his white jelly roll pen, he adds the scales on the snake.

Once it's done, he holds the sketch out at arm's length, staring at it for a few moments, waiting for it to suddenly look absolutely awful and make him want to chuck the damn book outside the window into the frost-covered grass but that doesn't happen. In fact, he actually really likes how it has turned out.

"Well?" Jess asked, sitting up and looking over at him.

"You - I might actually kiss you Sam," Gabriel says jokingly, grinning widely and he flips the book around so Jess can see it as well.

Sam's quiet on the other line - not that Gabriel really notices right now, he's too busy focusing on the fact he finally knows how to finish the painting - after Gabriel's comment.

Jess on the other hand, makes a hum, nodding approvingly at the sketch. "It looks good."

He nods, and putting the sketchbook down, Gabriel picks up his paint pallet. With a brush on one hand and pallet in the other, Gabriel dips his brush in the black paint and begins to paint the rest of the canvas black as well as outline the snake.

"I owe you, big time Samoose. Whatever you want," Gabriel tells his friend and Sam chuckles.

"I, uh, sure. Okay Gabe. Look, I gotta go, but send me a picture tomorrow of the final thing?" Sam's voice says. "Oh and Jess, make sure our _artiste_ doesn't die," he adds and Jess replies, "Got it! By Sam!"

"Night Gigantor!"

Sam bids goodnight as well before hanging up and Gabriel dives right into his painting, ready to finish the damn thing by tonight.

* * *

The rest of the applications are a breeze after that, and Gabriel finishes the painting at about two that morning. He and Jess then pass out and sleep until well past ten that Sunday.

He and his friends end up sending in all their applications before they go on Christmas break, not wanting to deal with them after the holidays, and it feels like a weight lifted off their shoulders. The rest of November and December move smoothly, and the grade twelves all focus on their assignments and tests as teachers try to wrap up what they can before the students go away for two weeks and ultimately forget everything that just happened before hand.

On the last day, before they go on break, Charlie looks over at them and grins. "We gotta go ice skating or something this winter, as one last winter together."

"Sure, okay!" Dorothy says cheerfully, and the others agree as well.

"You make the plans though or we'll all forget and just go to Jess' for hot chocolate," Sam tells her, and Charlie nods. "Will do."

She then claps her hands. "Well, shall we head off?" And, without waiting for a response, she walks in the direction of her car and the others follow behind her, waiting to get a ride rather than brave the trip home with the public transit.

* * *

Lucifer doesn't stop this time around with trying to win the bet and Gabriel hates him for it. He's had to turn his instagram on private to prevent all these people from messaging and asking him out, had to delete texts (because of course his brother gave out his number) and had turned down a number of awful coffee dates.

Sam had watched sadly from the side after Gabriel had begrudgingly went on one date, thinking about how he would probably never get a chance with Gabriel. Not only with the dates the guy kept being stuck with, but also the fact that he was certain Gabriel was straight and had no interest in dating guys.

Sighing, he pretends all is fine as Gabriel, while they are all putting on their skates, recounts his latest date. It sounds awful, but Sam focuses mainly on the fact Gabriel said he hated it and doesn't want to go on another. _A chance, perhaps? _He thinks, before cursing his wishful thinking. _No, probably not._

* * *

"You have any other coffee shop dates?" Kevin asked from his spot on the bench, not daring to stand yet in his skates.

"Not that I can think of," Gabriel said. "But then again, who knows?" He had risen off the bench and stood, wobbling for a few moments before righting himself. "We all ready to go?" He directs this question to the rest of the group and nearly all of them nod minus Jess.

"Nearly." Jess laces up her right skate before rising smoothly to her feet. "All good," she says while adjusting her scarf.

"Perfect!" Gabriel then checks to make sure his boots were shoved in the cubbie with Sam's and Charlie's before beginning to walk along the black rubber mats towards the door. The rest follow, zipping up their jackets and fixing their mittens and hats before they exited into the cold.

Gabriel leads them along the rubber mats that go down the sidewalk towards the outdoor ice rink. It's a bit tricky getting down two steps, almost all of them clinging to the railing for support but eventually they, without falling over, get to the edge of the rink. Gabriel gets on first, using the railing that is right by the edge where ice becomes rubber mats. There's a few other families and people skating around the path of the ice rink, some holding hands and moving at a leisurely pace while others, mainly younger kids, raced each other around the figure eight shape of the ice rink, laughing and shrieking over the music.

Jess follows Gabriel onto the ice, gliding away from the edge towards a thicker part of the ice. "C'mon slow pokes," she teases, and with a bit of wobbling, Charlie, Dorothy, and Kevin get on the ice (although Kevin gets some help from Gabriel after he nearly falls back on his butt).

"Don't worry, it's a bit tricky at first but you'll be fine." Sam looks over at her, stilling holding the railing with one hand, one skate resting on the ice.

"I feel like I'm gonna fall on my butt," he tells her and she shakes her head, laughing.

"I got you, Sam. Trust." She skates closer, holding out one hand. "I mean, as long as you don't fall directly onto me," Jess adds as Sam takes her hand, and with a bit of effort, he gets onto the ice, still clinging onto the pole with one hand.

"Now let go and shuffle your feet forwards, just like this," she continues, demonstrating how she moved her skates across the ice. "They don't have to be super big strides until you get comfortable."

Sam follows what she does at a much slower pace, shuffling bit by bit across the ice, and slowly they make their way to their friends who stand, waiting.

"Good! Now, don't be so stiff, lean into your shuffling a bit, it'll help."

He follows her instructions, and his strides becoming a bit longer.

"Looking good Moosey," Gabriel chimes in with a whistle, and the cold hides the flush on Sam's cheeks.

"Thanks."

"Race you losers?" Charlie asks, grabbing Dorothy's hand and Kevin shrugs.

"Why not?"

The three then take off, starting with slow strides and eventually picking up as they get into it, gliding across the ice. They leave behind Gabriel, who waits for Sam and Jess to reach him. When they do, he then begins to skate slowly in the same direction the rest of their friends skated off in, and Jess, squeezing Sam's hand, pulls him to follow.

Both go slower for Sam, letting him still adjust to the ice. "You guys can go ahead and keep skating," he tells them.

"Nah, I'm good Samshine." He then glances at Jess who says the same.

"'Sides, if I stick with you, Charlie won't get her ass beat in a race around the rink," she adds with a bright grin, tightening her scarf to better cover her neck. She moves around the two of them, no longer holding Sam's hand, and eventually turns to skate backwards, facing Sam and Gabriel as they skate around the figure eight portion of the rink. "Be my eyes, Novak?" she asks Gabriel, who nods.

"How'd you learn to skate so good?" Sam asks Jess.

"I wanted to play hockey when I was little and my parents at the time couldn't find me a girls team so they stuck me in figure skating. When I was nine, then we found this all girls hockey team and since I was tired of figure skating, they stuck me on it," she explained. "I've been basically skating for almost as long as I could walk. It's just as natural as walking honestly at this point."

Jess keeps moving backwards, Gabriel piping up every so often whenever someone got in front of her or they came to a turn.

They keep talking as they skate, eventually being joined again by Kevin, who had given up with trying to race Charlie, and not long after that, said redhead and her girlfriend joined them as well.

After skating for well over two hours, Gabriel grabs Sam's arm, guiding him to the side instead where they had first gotten off. Sam gives him a confused look, but Gabriel gestures to the zamboni right behind him. "Gotta clean up the ice a bit Sambo. Then we can go back in. Until then, wanna grab hot chocolate?" He asks and Sam nods.

His fingers, despite the gloves, as well as his nose are numb from the cold and he's sure his cheeks are pink from the cold. Hot chocolate definitely sounds delicious, and together, the two walk carefully along the black rubber mats to the small kiosk by the rink where someone is selling hot chocolate. Jess and the others are already crowded around the kiosk, getting their own drinks, and, as Gabriel and Sam got to the kiosk, they shuffled to the side to let them get closer.

"We're gonna go inside for a few moments to warm up more," Dorothy explains, her nose and cheeks just as pink as Gabriel's and Sam's.

"We'll meet you there in a bit," Sam tells her, and as the rest of their friends leave, Gabriel turns to Sam.

He pulls out his wallet and takes out a ten dollar bill. "What size do you want?" Gabriel asks Sam.

"Gabe, I can pay for it, it's fine," he begins, reaching for his own wallet but Gabriel shakes his head.

"My treat. For when you helped me with my painting. Now, what size."

Sam opened his mouth to argue but stops, knowing better than to try and accepts it. "Fine. I'll do a medium."

His friend smiles brightly. Gabriel then makes his way to the kiosk vendor, ordering two medium hot chocolates, while Sam snags a bench by the ice to sit and wait for a bit. He's talking with the guy at the kiosk for a moment before glancing back at Sam. "You want whipped cream or marshmallows?"

"Uh, just marshmallows." Sam takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs them together to try and warm them up, even going as far as cupping his hands together and blowing into them.

Gabriel nods, giving a thumbs up, and turns back to the guy, repeating that to him. A few moments later, Gabriel comes walking back to Sam, holding two cups of steaming hot chocolate. He sits down beside Sam, handing over one cup and the moment Sam takes it, he sighs at the warmth flooding into his fingers.

Beside him, Gabriel blows on the drink and takes a sip of what looks like a cup of whipped cream.

"You, uh, sure you didn't forget to order a hot chocolate for yourself," Sam teases, nudging Gabriel with his shoulder. He knows Gabriel had quite the sweet tooth and isn't that surprising that the monstrosity he has is decked out with so much whipped cream. Sam had a feeling there were also marshmallows under there as well.

"Oh shut up," Gabriel huffs, and Sam, who had taken a small sip of his own drink nearly spits it out as he catches Gabriel's face. He had been pouting, trying to look offended but the rather impressive whipped cream mustache he had made Sam want to laugh.

"You got a little," Sam gestures to his top lip with one hand and Gabriel, catching what he means, sticks out his tongue and licks it up.

"_Mmmm_. Delicious."

He takes another sip of his drink and the two sit there watching the zamboni drive over the ice.

All while they sit there, Sam's fully aware of his close Gabriel is. His knee touching Sam's, his boot every so often bumping into Sam's… Sam shifts his own leg away slightly, putting some space between them. He knows that Gabriel's not doing this intentionally, but it doesn't help with Sam's crush.

"You having fun Samstring?" Gabriel asks, after some silence falls between the two of them, and Sam almost misses what he says, catching it only at the last second.

"I, uh, yeah, I am. I haven't gone skating since I was really little and forgot how much fun it is."

Gabriel gives a hum, sipping his hot chocolate. They both stare at the rink as skaters start to get back on the ice, the zamboni now gone. Gabriel and Sam still sit on the bench to talk and finish their drinks, not wanting to risk trying to skate and then spill it on each other.

"Gabe, Sam, come quickly and watch Charlie lose miserably to Jess!" Dorothy calls out from the edge of the rink. They look over in the direction of her voice and find her waving eagerly to get their attention.

Sam glances over at Gabe. "How's Charlie gonna lose miserably to Jess?"

"Every time we go skating, Charlie drills into her head that this time she races Jess around the rink she'll win. And every time she does that, she loses by a long shot," he says. "Granted, she's been getting better, but Jess had been doing this shit for forever, making Charlie look like an amateur. It's actually really funny to watch."

He gives Sam a bright smile, getting to his feet. "C'mon." Gabriel grabs Sam's free hand, trying to pull him to his feet. "This is like a once in a lifetime thing."

"Okay," Sam says, letting Gabriel pull him to his feet and tug him, rather shakily, down the path towards the rink, each still holding their hot chocolate. When they get down to the ice, Charlie's grinning and boasting about how much better she's gotten since they last raced.

Jess rolls her eyes dramatically, trying not to laugh.

"Remember, three laps, first person back wins. No pushing or tripping," Kevin says, as the two girls line up beside him. Jess takes off her scarf and tosses it to Gabriel, who catches it and drapes it over his own shoulders and around his neck.

"Make her eat snow, Jessie!" Gabriel calls out and Charlie shoots him a dirty look.

"Rude."

Kevin ignores them, counting down. "Three, two, one… go!" The two girls then speed off.

(Jess ends up winning, like usual, however Sam has to admit it is entertaining watching the two speed around the rink, especially with Charlie trying to keep up with Jess. She had been fairly steady for the beginning, however, by the third lap, there was an obvious gap between the two of them. When Charlie ends up losing, she tells Jess, "next time. I got close though" and they all laugh, beginning to make their way back inside to take off their skates and head back home as the rink was starting to clear out of skaters.)

* * *

They spend more of their winter break together beyond ice skating, exchanging gifts together on Boxing day and going sledding a few days later before their annual get together for new years. After new years, the group focus on the assignments they had been assigned to complete during the break (of course their biology teacher had said for them to have their good copy of their large lab due for the Monday they came back instead of a week afterwards.), knowing that the next bits gonna be hectic.

These exams are important - the universities and colleges that haven't yet accepted them would be waiting for these marks before deciding if they would finalize their decision to accept or reject them. So, unlike prior years, they all start studying for the exams the moment they return back to school. Gabriel and Sam begin reviewing data management/statistics the moment they get back (although, it's more like Gabriel turned to Sam and begged him to help).

"It's all just numbers Samwell," Gabriel groaned from his place on the bed, binder resting open on his chest while he lies on his back and looks up at the ceiling. "Why do we have to learn about this shit?"

"I feel like we've had this conversation before," Sam said. He sat on the bed as well, his own binder of notes on his lap.

"You're supposed to comfort my in my suffering."

"Oh, I'm sorry. _You poor thing_," Sam corrects sarcastically.

Gabriel gives a huff. "Meanie. I help test you for biology and this is how you repay me. Sarcasm."

Sam reaches over and pats Gabriel's leg. "There there, you'll make it through this," he says dryly and his friend snorts.

"Aren't you just so supportive?"

Sam matches his snarky reply, saying, "I know. I do try."

He then grins and laughs, and Gabriel does too. "I still hate this stupid probability, combinations and permutations shit. Just like I hated calculus, and the other man we had to do. All that was super dumb."

"I just don't get why you didn't yet drop the course. You obviously hate math, and yet, you keep taking it? Isn't that a bit, well, masochistic?"

Gabriel makes a face at the word Sam used.

"You know I have a point," he continues, looking over at his friend. "You could have a spare, or do something else this semester that's fun like your art class."

He absolutely agrees that Sam's right. Gabriel doesn't need to take this math class, he has more than the required minimum credits needed for math to allow him to get his diploma. At this point, it was just Gabriel doing it on his own agenda, and, if you paired the fact Gabriel was going into art and also that he hated math, none of it quite made sense. He could've had a spare and relaxed with a slightly lighter course load of only English, art, and biology. Even next semester was still fairly decent, with Gabriel doing another English class for fun, archaeology and ancient civilizations, chemistry, and geography.

"Man, why didn't I?"

"Pride?" Sam suggests, and Gabriel gives him a half-shrug.

_Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate_. Gabriel, regardless of how difficult something was, would always refuse to quit or give up at it, and because of that, often found himself in stupid situations that could've been avoided ages ago.

"You think it's too late to drop it now?" Gabriel asks foolishly, knowing the answer was no, and also would result in him being yelled at by his guidance counsellor for about ten minutes for waiting roughly two months too long before deciding to drop the class.

"Considering the exam's in two weeks? I think so."

"Fuck."

He closes the binder on his chest. "I need snacks if I'm gonna survive this study session." Rising from his bed, Gabriel looks over at Sam. "You coming?" He asked and Sam nodded, closing his binder as well.

There's no point trying to fight Gabriel and continue to study. Not when Gabriel wanted snacks.

The two walk out of Gabriel's room, making their way down to the kitchen. There, Gabriel sticks a bag of popcorn into the microwave and they stand silently, staring at the microwave as the popcorn bag spins around and around. The kernels in it begin to pop and after a minute, when the popping stopped, Gabriel pulls out the bag and hisses.

"Ouch, it's hot." He opens the bag, steam escaping from it and despite knowing how hot it was, still reached into the bag and took a piece of popcorn. Tossing it into his mouth, he winced. "ouch."

"That was completely your fault that time."

Sam hands him a plastic bowl and Gabriel pours the popcorn into the bowl to allow it to cool down faster. "I'm guessing you're gonna continue with your procrastination and suggest a movie for the two of us to watch?" Sam asks him while grabbing the bowl. He had seen, while Gabriel was reaching into the cupboard for the popcorn that there were a few bags of chips and candy in there, and Gabriel, like Dean, would always argue that if you were having popcorn, it had to be with a movie or tv show. You couldn't just eat it alone, Sammy, the voice in the back of his mind chimes, sounding oddly like his older brother's.

Gabriel flashes him a toothy grin. "You know me too well," he says. "Since you took the words right out of my mouth, any movie suggestions?"

"No. You can choose whatever." Sam's not too picky with any particular movie and so Gabriel nods.

"Fair enough. It's been a while since I've watched _The Emperor's New Groove,_" Gabriel said, and he walks out of the kitchen, back towards his room, Sam following right behind him.

"Okay. And then after, are we gonna study more?"

Sam asks this while they're in the hallway, Gabriel with one foot on the stairs. He glances back at him, raises a brow, before turning back and climbing the stairs. The look Sam had received pretty much said, _no, they weren't_ and despite knowing that, he still follows Gabriel up the stairs rather than choosing to go home and begin studying.

* * *

Their study sessions resume about two weeks after that, however rather than last time, Gabriel doesn't have the time to procrastinate with his exams. Rather, Gabriel's forced to spend his afternoons after coming back from class with his friends to review for their upcoming exams at the end of the month.

The exams for this semester aren't extremely tricky, however they are demanding, especially with heavier subjects like biology and data management. His English and art courses are much lighter in the sense that they demand less of his attention, and for the case of English, he can really bullshit his way through the whole thing and still gain a fairly high marks.

"Why didn't I take a spare this semester?" Gabriel groaned, and Charlie nodded slowly, eyelids drooping.

It was nearly ten o'clock on a Thursday but they had been studying since about four and neither had had much sleep the last few days.

"You're asking the wrong person buddy. I'm somehow let myself get convinced not to take a spare this semester and I regret it completely." She yawns widely. "Do you think it's possible to die from lack of sleep?" Charlie asked, rubbing her eyes.

He pauses to think about it. "Depends. I think so but I can't remember if we talked about it in biology - no wait we did. You can."

"Oh," Charlie says before going quiet and Gabriel gives a hum. "So, how many hours did you need to have as a bare minimum for sleep?" She then asks after a bit and Gabriel shrugs.

"I don't know. Probably seven hours? I think my teacher said that. Or eight? Fuck, I can't remember anymore."

"Oh," Charlie says again. "I've had about fourteen hours."

Gabriel blinks slowly. Fourteen hours, that, if you were to have seven solid hours of sleep per day, wasn't actually a lot of sleep.

"It's not," she answered and Gabriel realized he had just said that all out loud. "I think I got like seven hours on Sunday night? Or well, _technically_ it was a Monday morning because it was after midnight when I went to bed, but I got seven hours then. And, the next day, I got three, plus I pulled that all nighter yesterday - although I did get a nap for one hour that day so it's not quite an all nighter, more like a...well...I took a short nap, and then last night I got like four hours and wait," she pauses in her rambling to look over at Gabriel. "Is that fourteen hours?"

He frowns, trying to go the math in his sleep idled brain. His brain however doesn't seem to want to properly add the numbers today and so he's stuck with numbers that definitely don't add up. "I think so?"

"We'll, either way, I didn't get much sleep and see as how I'm still confused on this stupid unit in biology I'm probably not getting much more sleep tonight."

"Me too honestly."

They both are aware of how unhealthy this is, the lack of proper sleep and trying to study and copious amounts of caffeine the two have just alone consumed in the last few hours, but in their defense, it's been a rough few days. So they flip open their biology textbooks to the next unit and begin reviewing hormones and homeostasis. The whole unit had been very content heavy with how many hormones they had to memorize and all their actions in the body and the whole class had collectively agreed it was the hardest unit (they'd argue worst for the time being until they reached ecology and plants which were so dreadfully boring that all would agree they were the worst units in general).

Charlie tries to stifle a yawn, glancing down at the pages. Gabriel figures with how she stares at them that she isn't actually processing the information, but rather, all the words are just swimming on the paper, just like it is for him.

"I can't study," he admits, realizing that after staring at one paragraph about salivary amylase that he hasn't actually absorbed anything he had apparently "read" for the last few minutes. He lifts his head and looks at Charlie. She too looks miserable beside him, her eyes struggling to stay open, head bobbing every so often.

He nudges his shoulder and startles her. Gabriel's aware he has to be the smart one of the two, because clearly nothing is going to happen with this lack of sleep studying. They've still got a week roughly until the biology exam, five days until English and if they keep this up, there's no way they are going to get a decent grade on the thing.

"We need 'to sleep," he mumbled and she shook her head.

"'M not tired," she slurs back, rubbing her eyes again before squinting at the paper. "Shit, my brain hurts. I wanna sleep," Charlie then says, looking up at him, and without anything else, gets up from her chair and stumbles over to his bed, collapsing on it.

She doesn't care that she's been in these clothes all day as the moment she hits the bed, Charlie's out like a light.

Gabriel follows suit - mainly because he doesn't think the biology textbook is comfortable, as much as sleep-deprived him might think - stumbling over to his bed (it takes a moment because when he gets up, his vision goes dark for a few seconds - which isn't good, thinking back on that now) and falling onto it, fully clothed.

Biology can wait for another day and he needs to catch up on some sleep.

* * *

Both Charlie and Gabriel sleep in well past noon the next day, despite going to bed at about ten-thirty that Friday. To the whole world, they are basically dead, and when they wake up feeling a hundred times better on Saturday at about three-thirty, both agree never to do the same shit again.

"Let's agree we try to sleep more than five hours a night," Charlie says as they two sit at Gabriel's dining room table, eating a bowl of cereal. "I don't think I can survive a fourteen hour week again, especially going to school."

He nods. "Agreed."

Sam comes by with Kevin later and the four of them review math for the time being until Charlie leaves at seven to go home and spend some time with Dorothy (and, Gabriel knows, also get changed and pass out again for another few hours). Jess is at work, unable to join them for their study session today, however, she does promise to come over Sunday for a few hours if Gabriel's free and help him with any biology stuff he's stuck on and he agrees to that.

So that's how their schedule works.

They all end up meeting up at each other's houses to get help for the difficult units or lessons in their courses (as most of them have similar schedules, minus a few classes) and Gabriel finds now that he's getting more sleep, more information is retained (the two of them don't bring this up to the rest of their friend group because they know, if they did, it wouldn't end pretty. Jess could be extremely scary when she wanted to, Dorothy as well) during their study sessions.

As the day of their first exam draws nearer, the weather also begins to become more severe. It becomes much colder, with the temperature dropping into the negatives and the windshield high. Whenever they go to school, Gabriel finds himself bundling up with a thick scarf, gloves, big winter boots and a warm winter jacket, the hood on tight.

"I can't believe how much it's already snowed," Jess says to Gabriel as they sit in the cafeteria, staring outside the window.

There was already ten centimeters of snow on the ground and it was still falling from the heavy dark clouds above their heads.

"I heard we're supposed to get a shit ton," he replied, and she looked at his skeptically.

"A shit ton for us isn't really that much. Every year they say that and yet all we get is like twenty centimeters max. A shit ton is like up to your knees or higher. This isn't that much," she explains, shaking her head. "Besides, it's all fluffy snow, not packing snow. By tomorrow it'll all be slush."

She has a point, but something tells Gabriel she might be wrong this time. He had checked the weather these last few days, and it was looking more and more like they'd have their exams snowed out and would need to be rescheduled.

"Guess we'll just have to wait and see, Jessie."

* * *

The wind and snow don't end up stopping when school finishes for the two grade twelves at two-thirty, and Jess frowns. Neither of them had a car to drive back home, and with the rest of their friends either staying later or without cars as well, it looks like they'll have to take the bus home.

It takes well over an hour to get back due to the snow and weather (Gabriel swears the moment there's like any snow on the ground the bus drivers freak out and drive half their speed), but eventually both Jess and Gabriel make it back to Jess' house.

"It's still snowing," he said in awe, and Jess looks up at the sky.

"Oh wow," comes her muffled response.

She pulls the scarf down from her mouth and together the two trudge up the driveway to her front door, and Jess, after a bit of fumbling with the keys (due to her fingers still numb from the cold), gets the door unlocked and the two quickly hurry in. Her house feels like a furnace compared to the frigid, arctic-like temperatures of the outside, and Gabriel welcomes the heat wholeheartedly.

"I'm never leaving," Gabriel tells her as the two began to take off all their winter gear. "You're stuck with me until spring."

Jess rolls her eyes. "Oh what a joy," she deadpans. "You want hot chocolate?" She then asks, and when he nods, the two make their way to her kitchen to make something to warm them up.

* * *

"Our English exam is tomorrow and I'm pretty sure we're going to get it cancelled due to the snow."

The two were sitting on the small couch in Jess' room, each cradling their mugs of hot chocolate.

"No way," Jess argues. "We haven't had an actual snow day in years Gabe!"

"But they said on the news that it was going to keep snowing well into tomorrow," he points out.

"I can think of quite a few times the weather man's been wrong." She takes a small sip of her drink. "They won't cancel school, especially not exams. They haven't yet when there's been an extreme cold alert, why with a little snow?"

He shrugs, and in lieu of an answer, just drinks some hot chocolate.

"Besides, of all exams cancelled, you want it to be our English one?" Jess continues, looking at him funny.

"Nah. I'd rather math, but at this point, I'll take any exam being cancelled because of snow."

Jess gives a hum and then nods, seeing his point. "Fair enough."

* * *

It's stopped snowing when they wake up the next morning and without any message to the students that class is cancelled, they all go in begrudgingly for their first exam. Gabriel's a bit upset, wanting to have a snow day for once, but there's barely enough snow on the ground to cause any issues besides bus delays and so he just has to accept there won't be any exams cancelled from the weather.

Their English exam is fairly easy, being exactly like how their teacher described it to be. The first half is a passage commentary, where they get a poem and short story excerpt they've never seen before and have to write a commentary about it. The second part is questions about Gatsby, the novel they had read in class (it was supposed to be a comparison essay between _The Great Gatsby_ and _King Lear_, but they had run out of time during the course to fully teach Gatsby so the teacher just had questions on that novel). Gabriel finds himself finishing almost forty-five minutes early, and after handing in his exam, he glances around the room to see most of his friends were done as well, or finishing up the last little bit.

When the time's up, Gabriel goes to grab his bag and stops as he hears murmurs from the rest of his classmates. Turning around, he looks out the window to see it's started snowing again.

"Let's go," he says to his friends, "before the snow gets worse and we get stuck here."

They all nod, grabbing their things and sending a quick goodbye to their teacher, hurry out of the class towards Charlie's car.

* * *

It continues snowing through the rest of the day, and well into the night as Gabriel reviews his last few things before his math exam the next morning. He's skeptical it'll stop, despite what his friends say, and when Gabriel wakes up the next morning, packing up all his things, Raphael gives him a funny look.

"What?" Gabriel asks, looking at his brother who was still in his pyjamas. "Why aren't you dressed? Don't you have classes today?"

He shakes his head. "Classes are cancelled due to the snow and weather. Haven't...Haven't they said anything yet for you?"

"No, nothing."

It sucks that Raphael gets the day off while Gabriel doesn't, but his older brother does offer to at least drive him, knowing it's extremely bad out. The fifteen minute drive to Gabriel's high school takes almost thirty due to traffic and all the snow, the snow plows struggling to keep up with the almost knee-high snow and the falling flakes.

"Good luck," Raphael says when they eventually pull up by the sidewalk in front of Gabriel's school. He wasn't risking driving further into the parking lot, none of it had yet been plowed and it was packing snow - much heavier and harder to drive through.

Gabriel reaches for his bag and door handle, ready to go out and accept how shitty his school was for not cancelling the exam today, when Raphael stops him.

"Call me if they cancel it. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to get here quick enough to pick you up, but I'll try."

He flashes his older brother a kind smile. "Thanks Raph." And then out Gabriel goes, into the cold and begins his shitty trudge through the deep snow to the school doors.

When he gets inside, he drops his jacket, scarf and boots in his locker and makes his way through the eerily quiet high school towards the cafeteria. Inside the cafeteria, it's basically empty. It's almost eight, an hour before the exam will start and not even a third of the school's population is here. Gabriel's more and more sure they're gonna end up cancelling the exam, if not because of the weather, but from the low attendance. Only Kevin is comes, although he doesn't get there until just a little after eight, and the rest of their friend group is still struggling to get to the high school through the snow and traffic.

"This sucks," Kevin says. "I'm pretty sure half the teachers are going to be away and yet they still won't cancel the exam."

"I know." Gabriel gives a huff. "I hate this."

They still keep studying, review the last few things because the exam's still on unless something changes.

Then, at eight-ten, the principal's voice comes on on the P.A. "Students, due to the weather, we will be cancelling today's exam and moving it to Friday."

There's cheers throughput the cafeteria that drown out whatever else the principal has to say, and Gabriel's happy because he was certain he was going to do absolute shit on the exam, but at the same time, he's pissed. He's been here for almost half an hour, so have a few others. They're made this trek all the way here, and the principal, despite seeing how bad the weather is, didn't bother to say anything until _now. _

He grabs his stuff, and pulls out his phone, calling Raphael to tell him the exam's cancelled and if he could come pick Gabriel and Kevin (because he knows Kevin took the bus - that brave soul - to school today). When he hangs up, he looks at his friend. "Well, looks like we got a few extra days to study for this," he says and Kevin nods.

"Guess so. How long 'til Raphael gets here?"

Gabriel shrugs. "I'm not sure. Want to start looking over things for biology tomorrow while we wait? It might get cancelled tomorrow too but who knows with the way this fucking school operates."

"Sure."

They open their biology notebook, reviewing what they need to know for tomorrow while around them, kids are calling their parents trying to find rides home to get out as soon as possible. It seems, according to the teachers who talk by checking to make sure kids all have some way of safely getting, that the weather is going to get worse later.

_Fun times,_ Gabriel thinks, and he pulls out his phone to send a text to all the group chats he's a part of.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: exams are cancelled today bc of snow. It's moved to the end of the week

* * *

He doesn't look at the group chats afterwards, knowing only that a bunch of people are both celebrating and pissed (the ones that were pissed were those who had either just gotten to the school to now hear the announcement to go home, or those who had been panicking in traffic for so long that were a block away and now had to turn all the way back home).

Regardless of the wait, and what they did, Gabriel does enjoy the fact his exam is moved until the end of the week and he can relax a bit more. Part of his wishes tomorrow's will get cancelled as well, but that sounds too much like wishful thinking.

(It is. He does end up writing the biology exam the next day, and while there is still a shit-ton of snow, at least it has stopped snowing and the plows have been able to clean the roads and sidewalks. There's still traffic trying to get to the school, but not as much as the day before and for the rest of the week, Gabriel writes his few exams before trudging home in knee high snow.)

* * *

During the school year, after the ice skating and some other incidents Sam would rather not talk about, Sam finds himself being okay with his crush he has for Gabriel. It's not easy, always spending time with his crush, especially when Lucifer keeps trying to set Gabriel up with all these girls, forcing him to go on dates and such, but Sam survives. He pushes past his crush, not telling Gabriel and just hoping that the feelings are either reciprocated, or, worse case scenario, Sam moves on and doesn't have to awkwardly try and tell Gabriel he likes him (or Gabriel awkwardly finding out). He can ignore how he feels when they spend lunches talking, Gabriel's eyes bright and hands gesturing enthusiastically with whatever he's saying, or their movie nights when Gabriel leans sleepily against him, not even realizing this as the movie drones on in the background. Sam even is fine with listening to Gabriel recount his shitty dates or how his brother's always on his case about one thing or another.

When prom season came round in March however, Sam found it got harder to keep the feelings at bay. Suddenly, all people were talking about was the approaching prom in May - who were they going with? Was it going to be as friends or with a partner and was that someone from another school? Talks about promposals began popping up too, all with the contest that the best one would earn the couple two free tickets and before Sam knows it, prom fever hits. Any of his female friends bring up dress shopping and shoe shopping and the guys are trying to figure out who they'll ask, or how they'll ask, and Sam feels stuck.

It doesn't help that, as they are focusing on wrapping up their final classes of high school, Gabriel is being approached by girls, all of whom Gabriel turns down, and Lucifer's setting him up on more "totally-not dates".

* * *

"Hey Gabe, how have you still not gotten a date for prom?" Jess asked, it now mid-April with less than a month before prom would happen, as Gabriel sat down at their table.

A sigh leaving his lips. Reaching over, Gabriel stole some of Charlie's fries, stuffing a few in his mouth and shrugging at Jess. "Don't really feel like going with any of them," he lied with a mouth full of half chewed fries and everyone else at the table cringed.

"I swear you have no manners, Novak," Charlie hissed, eyes closing the moment Gabriel opened his mouth to respond. "Swallow before you speak, _geez_."

Kevin, looking up from his phone said, "What about the rest of you? Got anyone?"

Charlie gave him a look. "Dude, do you really need to ask me that question?" She said, while leaning against her girlfriend and placing their entwined hands on the table for all of them to see.

"Okay, fair enough," Kevin replied, before turning to face Jess.

"I'm going with Brady but he still hasn't promposed to me yet, that jerk. Your girlfriend say yes Kev?" Jess asked and Kevin's wide smile gave away his answer. "Guess that just leaves Sam and Mr. Single over there."

Gabriel stuck his tongue out at her, having swallowed his food and she returned the gesture, knowing two could play at being childish.

"I don't know. I might ask Ruby or Sarah." Sam gave a small shrug, not really wanting to truthfully ask either girl out.

Gabriel tossed a fry at him.

"If they say no, you can always hang out with me Samsquatch. Movie marathon." The big smile on Gabriel's face brought the fuzzy warm feeling back to Sam and he couldn't help but smile back, thanking his friend. Even later when he saw Gabriel be approached by Kali, the feeling didn't disappear, mainly because he was not only reminded that no matter who approached Gabriel, the boy wouldn't be going, but also because it gave Sam some hope that perhaps Gabriel might actually like him too.

"But Jessie, we gotchu. We're gonna make sure Brady does the best promposal ever."

(They can all honestly admit afterwards it was the worst one ever - mainly because Brady's disorganized and also that Jess already knew what was going to happen. Basically, Gabriel had Sam had tried to help Brady set up, getting him flowers as he planned to sing her songs after school in the cafeteria. However, because Jess was running around earlier that day to help with a few errands for the yearbook committee, she had seen as Brady had come in from the parking lot, with flowers in his hand and guitar on her back. Charlie, who had tagged along because of her spare, had shoved her friend into the nearest locker, but the damage had been done - he had managed to keep Jess from finding out earlier but only just barely - and when Brady did do it about ten minutes later - and twenty minutes later than what had been planned - Jess smiles and says yes while pretending to have no clue. It made Gabriel feel a bit bad for her, but not quite Brady as they guy had had so much time to set it up and waited instead until the last minute to do anything. All in all, a disaster, mostly due to poor timing.)

* * *

The morning of prom, Gabriel wakes up at about eleven thirty, having stayed up late just because he could now without worrying about repercussions. While most of his friends are worrying about looking good, Gabriel makes his way down stairs to eat cereal, yawning and flipping his brother the bird when Lucifer, after seeing him enter the kitchen, purposely finishes the bag of milk to force Gabriel to get more.

(Gabriel doesn't. Two can play that game, Luce, he thinks and puts the empty milk bag container back in the fridge, helping himself to some toast instead)

After that, it's toast and tv.

When Jess at three o'clock is getting her hair done, Gabriel's perched on his desk chair drawing in his book. When Charlie and Dorothy are boarding the limo at seven thirty to go and drive by Kevin's house to pick up him and his girlfriend, Gabriel is checking to make sure they have the last of the snacks and sugary things he needs to make this movie marathon perfect. And, eight o'clock, when they arrive at the venue, Sam knocked on Gabriel's door.

* * *

At about eight o'clock, Sam finds himself on Gabriel's front poor, knocking on the door. His mother had been a bit disappointed about his choice not to go to his prom - "You'll make so many wonderful memories Sam!" she had told him and he had just said it wasn't that big of a deal, "honestly Mom, it's just a bunch of people dancing." - but eventually, had caved and nodded, allowing Sam to leave the house.

After that, he had gotten into his car, and drove over to Gabriel's house, which had led to him, at this moment, standing at the door when Raphael opened it. Sam rarely saw Raphael as Gabriel's older brother was usually away at university, more focused on completing his studies then popping back home all the time - that was Lucifer's job it seemed. Raphael stares at him as Sam enters, giving a polite hello which Sam returns.

"You here for Gabe?" He asked, and Sam nodded. "Have fun then," Raphael said. "I have to go, but don't do anything too stupid - and don't let Lucifer convince you to do anything stupid."

Raphael then grabs his coat and keys and slips past Sam, closing the door and locking it.

It was rather abrupt but Sam couldn't say he didn't not expect that from Raphael. The older boy, while respecting his little brother and little brother's friends, wasn't the type to hang around for conversations. That was Lucifer, who got nosy.

"Isn't it prom?"

And, speak of the devil.

Sam, who was in the process of untying one of his shoe laces, looks up and finds Lucifer standing in the hallway, with a raised brow.

"Uh, yeah. But I didn't want to go," Sam explains and Lucifer moves closer, watching his with unreadable blue eyes.

"Isn't your girlfriend upset? Or did she have other plans, hence why you didn't go?" Gabriel's brother continues to ask questions, and Sam snorts.

"I don't have a girlfriend," Sam says. He wants to add, _I'm in love with your brother, so there's no girl, whatsoever _but stops himself before he can. No need for Lucifer to know that.

Lucifer makes a noise at that, before saying, "Gabriel's upstairs. I'm assuming you know where his room is?" The question is rhetorical, of course Sam knows. He's been here so many times; he could find his way around the Novak household easily - Gabriel had joked that they try it with their eyes closed and see who could do the best. Last time something of that sort happened, Gabriel had two of his fingers in a splint.

"Thanks," Sam says, mostly to be polite,before walking up the stairs and heading straight towards Gabriel's room. He calls out to his friend before opening the door and entering the room, and as he plops down down on the bed beside Gabriel, his friend merely glances at him before focusing once more on the laptop resting on his lap.

"It's rude to enter one's room without knocking," he pointed out. "I could've been watching porn."

Sam rolls his eyes, peeking at the laptop screen – which showed the homepage of YouTube and definitely not porn – before saying, "You don't knock. In fact, you let yourself into my own home and help yourself to the food in the fridge."

Gabriel turned to face him, opening his mouth to argue but Sam added, "I've come back from the library to find you watching tv in my room, eating my chips."

"It's not like you'll actually eat them. I'm doing you a favour," Gabriel replies without missing a beat.

"Oh really? What favour are you doing for me?"

Golden eyes go back to the laptop screen and Gabriel grins. "I'm helping you not end up with stale chips," he said cheekily, and Sam smacked his shoulder.

"They're only stale cause you open the bag and end up eating half of the bag before leaving it open to get stale!" the longer haired male exclaims. "You're an ass, you know that?"

The shorter male gives him a wider grin and once more those gold eyes are on Sam. He feels the warm, fuzzy feel and Sam can't help staring into the unique eyes.

"But I'm your ass. You chose to be my friend, so you're stuck with this ass."

Sighing, Sam mumbles, "I guess I am. What a tragedy. Ouch!" He rubs his shoulder where Gabriel hit him and the Novak laughs, Sam soon joining in. Eventually, the two are in tears, laughing at God-knows-what, and that right there was something Sam never wanted to lose (Gabriel either).

* * *

True to Gabriel's promise, the duo marathon all eight Harry Potter movies, sharing a large bowl of popcorn as well as two bags of Twizzlers and a big box of Smarties. It was much better than going to the dance, Sam mused happily, not regretting his decision one bit. A few friends had told him he would but funny enough, Sam could truthfully admit that he felt no regret as the two lay together on Gabriel's bed, the shorter of the two snuggling against his side comfortably with his head on Sam's shoulder.

It was halfway through the credits of the Goblet of Fire before Gabriel asked, "Who's your favourite?"

"Pardon?" Sam said, caught off guard by the question and turning to meet Gabriel's eyes. "Favourite character? Or favourite of the champions?"

Gabriel thought for a second before responding: "Favourite character."

"Why?" Sam shifted, grabbing for the popcorn bowl and taking a handful.

He gets a shrug from Gabriel. "Just curious. Everyone has a favourite, deep, deep down even if they don't want to admit it."

Gabriel can see Sam looked willing to refute that, but doesn't.

Instead, he answer's Gabriel's question.

"Um…probably Lupin or Sirius." Sam scrunches up his nose, thinking carefully, before adding, "Maybe McGonagall as well. Honestly it's so hard to choose one absolute favourite. I mean, everyone loves the Golden Trio but besides them? It's too difficult to choose, J.K. Rowling had a lot of great characters."

Gabriel nods in agreement. While J.K. Rowling, especially in more recent years has done quite a few questionable things, he can admit she wrote quite a few good characters.

"What about you?" Sam asks before popping a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

"Easy, Fred and George," Gabriel told him, grinning with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Of course. Shouldn't've asked."

Gabriel glared playfully at him, tossing a handful of popcorn at him. "Rude."

Sam dodges most of the pieces of popcorn, grabbing the bowl after and taking it from Gabriel to prevent any further attacks. "Favourite task?"

"The first task. The dragons were freaking awesome," Gabriel replied, words muffled by candy and Sam scrunched up his nose.

"Seriously? Do you always speak with half chewed up food in your mouth?" he grumbled and the shorter boy smirked, purposefully saying "yes" after shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

He shoved his friend's shoulder, spilling some of the popcorn on Gabriel's lap. "Gross." Disgust painted his features but Gabriel could see the corners of Sam's mouth faintly quirking up.

"What's so wrong about it?" Gabriel asked, chewing loudly while speaking. "It's just popcorn."

"No it's not just popcorn. It's one thing eating it from the bowl and another thing seeing it half chewed and mushy in someone's mouth," Sam pointed out. "Stop it Gabe!" He shouted, yanking the bowl away from his friend and hitting him with a pillow when Gabriel started to argue back with him about speaking with food in your mouth. "Swallow then speak."

Sighing exaggeratedly, the shorter boy did so before saying, "You made the mistake of coming here Samsquatch. My house, my rules and I say if you want to speak with your mouth full of popcorn, you can."

"Yeah well I'm not going to help you if you're choking then. I'll just finish the rest of the series without you." Sam shrugged and a hand flew to Gabriel's chest, resting over his heart.

"I thought we had something special Sam! How could you do this to me?" Gabriel cried in mock heartbreak and Sam rolled his eyes playfully.

"I'll do CPR, _eventually_."

Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows, seeing an opportunity and seizing it. "How about mouth to mouth?" A blush dusted Sam's cheeks and he focused back on the movie rather than on Gabriel.

They relapse into silence before Gabriel says, "I was kidding, Samsquatch. You know that, right?" He looks over at his friend, not wanting to upset Sam. Gabriel's got the habit of running house mouth, and he can see how Sam shifts, reading it as the guy was uncomfortable with the comment.

"I know Gabe." He then gives an easy smile which calms the nerves Gabriel had inside him.

He leans against his friend, and they both focus on the movie.

At one point, during the middle fifth movie, Gabriel finds himself practically lying across Sam, now eating a Twizzler. He personally doesn't think much of it, as with his really close friends, but for Sam, it's a whole 'nother story.

* * *

Sam's mind is screaming as Gabriel drapes himself onto his lap without much thought, and he can't focus on the movie. Not anymore. He keeps glancing down at Gabriel, and when he shifts slightly, Sam feels himself blush, ear tips and cheeks growing pink - he's grateful it's dark enough that should Gabriel look up at him, he won't see it. Not that Gabriel has looked back at him at all during the time where he's been lying on Sam's lap, focused intensively on the movie playing. Sam wonders if Gabriel realizes what he's doing, how intimate and close they are because he knows Gabriel likes to be all close and stuff with his friends, but never has he seen him like this with any of their other friends. He just does this with Sam. And maybe it's his heart talking, brain all muddled and confused, but all this makes Sam feel hopeful.

Sam's hand, which has been hovering awkwardly over Gabriel's head, finally rests on his head, fingers slowly threading through his hair. Gabriel moves his head a bit, and Sam holds his breath in fear, hand not moving.

He waits for Gabriel to sound confused, to freeze up or say something that would illustrate his dissatisfaction with what Sam is doing, but nothing like that happens. Rather, Gabriel seems to lean into it.

Sam exhales, no longer tense. An easy smile spreads across his face as he continues threading his fingers through Gabriel's hair, the man on his lap quietly eating still. Then Gabriel moves in his lap, rising and Sam freezes, shoulders tensing.

_Shit, _he thinks, watching Gabriel sit up, and look over at him. _Now he's gonna finally say something. _

But Gabriel doesn't. At least, not say what Sam's thinking he might say. "Sorry Samsquatch, gotta take a piss. Pause it quickly? I'll be right back."

He flashes one of his bright smiles, the one that makes Sam feel all warm and Sam nods, reaching for the remote beside him on the couch arm. He pauses the movie, as Gabriel stands, stretching.

"I'll grab more candy from the kitchen as well," Gabriel says. "You want anything?" He looked over at Sam, but Sam shook his head, not willing himself to talk right now and so Gabriel leaves to go to the washroom.

It's only once he's gone does Sam let out a sign, running a hand through his long brown hair.

_Get it together, Winchester, _he tells himself. _You don't need to mess this up. _

* * *

When Gabriel returns from the washroom, he takes a short detour into the kitchen before returning back to the living room to snag more candy. He opens the cupboard, shifting through his hidden stash, trying to find his box if Mike & Ikes - which were missing. Fucking Lucifer found his stash, again - and when having no lucky, grabs twizzlers and gummy worms. Gabriel then makes his way back to the living room with his treats, plopping down on the couch beside Sam. He misjudges it slightly, due to the limited light, and lands half on Sam's lap.

Normally, Gabriel wouldn't think much of it, but Sam tenses up, ever so slightly and Gabriel feels it so he shifts over in confusion until he's not touch the other at all.

_Why'd he tense up? _Gabriel wonders. _Sam never seems to be bothered by me being super close and stuff with him, so what happened? _

The movie resumes but Gabriel can't find himself watching the tv screen. Instead, he keeps glancing over at Sam, trying to read his friend's expression. He's got no luck, as with the lack of proper lighting and the fact that Sam's face is far too relaxed and calm, Gabriel can't read him at all. His stomach sank.

_Had he done something to upset Sam? No, impossible,_ Gabriel tried to tell himself, trying to focus on the screen before them. It's probably nothing, he told himself. Just your mind playing tricks on you.

"You excited for Stanford?" Gabriel asks, rather out of the blue to be a distraction from the worry in his chest.

Sam glances at him, and there's a smile on his face. "Yeah. I know we still have time to decline our offers or wait for other places but Stanford just feels like the one, you know?"

Gabriel nods.

"How about you? You get into that art school you applied for in New York?"

Gabriel takes a bite of licorice. "Yeah. I also got into the one I applied to, for fun, in Alberta, but I don't think I want to move up that North," he says but his words feel flat and lifeless. Somehow, despite Sam's enthusiasm, Gabriel's chest sinks further as he realizes like Gabriel, Sam and the rest of his friends have all applied to schools that aren't just in New York but out of state and spread across the states - and in Kevin's case, one in London. All of them wanted to have their own freedom, but it feels so extreme. At least with Jess, Charlie and Dorothy, they applied to places in New York with Gabriel so he'll have most of friends with him but Sam? California and New York aren't close at all. And, if he doesn't accept the New York offer, none of his other ones are close to New York.

Realizing that, the licorice in his mouth tastes wrong and sour.

He always loved spending time with his close knit friend group, and while he didn't struggle to make friends, the idea of losing the dear ones he had now, the idea of losing Sam, it made him wanna run into his room and lock the door, never to come out again.

"You okay, Gabe?"

He looks over at Sam, stepping out of his thoughts and nods, giving what he's certain isn't a very convincing smile.

"Yeah."

Sam gives him an odd look, and Gabriel knows for sure his smile wasn't convincing.

"You sure? You...you know you can tell me anything, right?" He pauses. "That's what best friends are for."

Gabriel nods. "It's just, shit man, us all going our separate ways after summer? What happens if we decide to never talk again?" _What if you decide to find a better friend? _

"Gabe I doubt it, we'll still talk. You literally text me all the time and if I don't answer, you come over to my house. My mom's basically adopted you as her third son. Something tells me you'll drive or fly of whatever over to California and appear at my dorm at 4am, eating my food."

Gabriel snickers and it eases the worry be has.

"Four am? Excuse me? When have I ever bugged you at four am? I am a good, respectful Catholic boy who never sneaks out and breaks into his friends' houses," Gabriel replied in shock and Sam rolls his eyes.

"Oh, my bad. It was one am and you had come over to watch horror movies with my brother."

"Don't be salty that you weren't invited. You don't like clown movies."

Sam smacked him and they then both broke out into laughter.

Gabriel felt some relief that things were okay between them, and they continued the rest of their movie marathon well into early morning.

And, as both watched the Golden Trio stare at their children heading towards Hogwarts on the train, Gabriel turned to Sam. "I wish Rowling just ended the movies without this part."

Sam frowned. "What? Why?"

Reaching for the last of the M&Ms, Gabriel shrugged. "I mean, it's sweet and all, and maybe I'm just bitter about the whole Harry naming his son after fucking Snape _AND_ Dumbledore but I'm not sure if I'm ultimately satisfied with it. It feels like there's something missing," he explained before tossing the rest of the M&Ms into his mouth.

"I thought it wasn't too bad. The part before, after the final battle - yeah that I wished they kept more to the book about but I didn't mind it. Albus' name aside."

Gabriel gives another shrug as if to say, "Eh, whatcha gonna do."

As the credits begin to roll, Gabriel shifts under the blanket. "You gonna sleep now?" He personally wasn't tired, perhaps from the sugar or just that feeling of nostalgia or warmth when you finished a really good series that made your heart still race. Either way, Gabriel was sure he wasn't going to crash for at least another few hours. Sam of course was a different story.

"I'm not too sure. I -" Sam yawned. "I'm only partially tired. You staying up?"

Gabriel nodded, and watched as Sam got up, turning off the DVD player and tv, plunging the room into darkness. Then, as he made his way back to the couch, flicked on the one lamp in the room. A warm, hazy yellow light lit up the couch area and Sam could see the extent of their movie marathon - popcorn and empty candy bags scattered everywhere, a few skittles on the floor from what he could assume was when Gabriel put them on the sofa arm only to then gesture enthusiastically during the _Prisoner of Azkaban _ and knock the bag sending skittles flying everywhere.

Gabriel stretches out along the couch, and Sam takes the other one, knowing while he could try to squeeze himself onto the same couch, it'd be a bit difficult with Gabriel, the sofa hog.

(For a man so short, he definitely took up a ton of fucking space.)

"So now what? Truth or dare?" He suggests and Sam makes a face.

"What are we, twelve? Who plays truth or dare anymore?"

Gabriel sits up looking extremely offended, as if Sam had insulted his mother, not a silly game. "How dare you tarnish the wonderful game of daring choices, the risk of revealing ones deepest desires over risking reputation and dignity to amuse your friends! It is an honourable timeless game!"

Sam raised a brow. "Did…" he trailed off, before continuing, as if not quite sure he had heard correctly, "Did you just try to make truth or dare sound more interesting?"

He received a huff. "C'mon Samsquatch!" Sam gave him a look. "Unless you got a better game or listen to me ramble about how I'll be seventy-five dollars richer in about two weeks."

"I...wait, what?" Whatever Sam was gonna say next he forgets as the mention of Gabriel suddenly becoming richer caught him off guard. He hadn't figured Gabriel to be one to gamble much. "How are you gonna do that?"

Gabriel grinned. "Didn't I tell you about the bet?" When Sam shook his head, he gasped. "Oh how dare I not share my most glorious bet with my brother yet to my best-est friend!"-

He sits up, shifting his body to face Sam. "Okay, so. Luci made a bet with me like roughly three and a half years ago that I'd get a girlfriend before I graduated high school and there's been fifty bucks riding on it. And I took the dare and on graduation he's gonna pay up because he lost and it's gonna be the most glorious moment of my life."

When Gabriel mentions that, Sam realizes something that he hadn't quite understood before. "Wait, is that why you turned down all the girls who came and asked you out the last two years I've known you?"

"Nah," Gabe explained, shaking his head. "I was telling the truth when I said I wasn't attracted to them."

"Oh."

_Oh_ was right. Suddenly, Sam's heart jump a little, no longer so doubtful that he might not have a chance with Gabriel. It can still be wishful thinking, he knows that, but if Gabriel's turned down a number of girls, he might not be attracted to girls at all, not just holding out for one in particular.

"Wait. You said seventy-five dollars richer, but Lucifer only bet you fifty," he pointed out and Gabe laughed.

"Yea no, Luci tried to get smart, alongside the sneaky dates he set up - an extra twenty-five if I had sex with anyone during high school."

Sam blinked, and he felt his cheeks get a bit warm. He had known Lucifer was quite blunt, but that was something else entirely. "oh, that's...uh, well-" Sam stammers, trying to find a response, but Gabriel beats him to it.

"Jokes on him though cause that ain't happening either." Gabriel says it with a large grin, one that suggests he knows something no one else does. And perhaps he does, but Sam doesn't know.

Gabriel seems to catch that as well, as the smile drops at the corners, folding in on itself until Gabriel, who had been grinning and laughing moments earlier, looks nervous. He knows he's not forced to tell Sam the truth, he can keep him in the dark like Gabriel had with the rest of his friends. Just keep this inside Gabriel as a dark, naughty little secret that doesn't see the light of day, ever, and they can pretend everything is fine. But Gabriel doesn't want that. He's tired of being quiet about it, and wants someone to know. He wants to do more than pretend on tumblr to be an ally and go to pride with Dorothy and Charlie as a supporter and instead be a part of it all. But it's so risky and Gabriel's scared of the fallout, he always has been.

Ever since he knew. Ever since he joined tumblr and decided to search the tag to see what might be on it - it wasn't the greatest shit. Fourteen year old Gabriel had exited it pretty quickly, having gotten the point by some of the top posts - it's gotten better, over the years, but he can't follow it, can't scroll through it anymore and not end up hating himself, even the slightest bit after doing so.

He's gotten more confident about all of, but still. There are moments of self-doubt.

"Look -" Gabriel shifts, twisting his hands. "You can't tell anyone yet or anything. It's not that I'm like, ashamed or anything, but I'm not really sure how others might react and well I'm.."

_Fuck why didn't he do this some other time?_

He's rambling, while trying to talk and Gabriel knows that, but he can't stop. Gabriel's confident nearly always, except when talking about this, this super personal secret he's had since sixth grade. _Just tell him. Sam will understand, he's gotta. _

At least Gabe hopes he does.

Sam thinks he knows where this conversation is going so he decides to help his friend out. "If you're tell me you're gay or something Gabe, I've got nothing on that. I'm not straight either."

"I'm - wait, what?" he's caught off guard by that, and blinks, looking at Sam. "You're not straight?"

Sam shakes his head. "No, I'm bisexual."

"Oh. Huh." There's a pause, a silence between them before Gabriel says, "Thanks for telling me Sam." He then glances down at his hands for a moment and taking a deep breath. "So, I...uh, what I was going to say earlier is that I'm not straight either. Or, well gay. I'm ace."

Sam's quiet, and Gabriel thinks the worst. Being gay or bi and being ace are completely different things and Gabirle knows that people can intrpret it differently so he waits for Sam's response, whether it be support or anger or confusion.

"Ace?" Sam repeats, unfamiliar with the word. He's never heard of anyone referring to themselves with the word, although he's heard the word before in other instances. Just, not to do with sexuality, and so is hopelessly lost as Gabriel comes out to him - and feels bad doing so.

_Confused it is._

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah, like asexual," he clarifies, and still he can tell from the way Sam's nose is scrunched and brow furrowed that that hasn't helped make things easier to understand. "I'm not actually attracted to anyone, sexually."

_And there it was_.

Most people don't understand the concept, not like if you came out as gay. Gay was easy - you liked someone of the same sex. Bisexual, both sexes. Being aseual wasn't something people didn't really talk about because it was just so...different. Not feeling sexually attracted to anyone, regardless of their gender. He could have an easier conversation with someone if he was gay, even if it involved someone like his brothers or dad finding gay porn on his laptop and being like, "Son, what the fuck is this?" Even that would be less awkward than waiting, knowing he'd have to go on some long discussion about what ace is and no, he's not some plant that uses fucking binary fisson or some shit to reproduce.

Sam said nothing for a moment. Then he asked, "Am I the only one who knows?"

Gabriel nodded slowly, not saying a word.

"And Lucifer didn't know before he made the second part of the bet?"

"No." Gabriel said.

"Oh shit."

Sam started laughing and Gabriel exhaled in relief. "Gabe you little shit that's such an asshole thing to do. Also you should've made him raise it higher!"

Gabriel feels light in the chest and can't help but join in, in laughing. "He would've gotten suspicious! Besides, I'm getting seventy-five bucks that's already pretty sweet! it's mostly about the satisfaction of beating Lucifer than the money prize."

When the laughter died down, Gabriel looked over at Sam. "You… you don't care I'm ace, do you?"

Sam shook his head. "Am I supposed to? But seriously, I've just never heard of it until now, that's why I was a bit confused. That's all."

Gabriel grinned, "Thanks Sam."

Sam returned the grin. "So basically, you've swindled your brother out of seventy-five bucks and he doesn't even realize that yet because he doesn't realize you're firstly, not sexually attracted to anyone, and secondly, that you aren't attracted to girls?"

"Basically."

"You're absolutely awful Gabe."

"I know."

When the laughing dies down, Gabriel's still grinning widely.

"I can't believe that our friend group is comprised of only two straight people," Gabriel says and Sam, thinking about it for a moment, soon realizes Gabriel's right.

"Huh. Who would've thought?"

"I know right?"

Sam looks over at Gabriel. "Thanks for telling me as well Gabe. I understand that it can't be easy but I'm happy you trusted me enough to tell me."

Gabriel tries to play it off like it's no big deal, but both know it was. "You wanna keep playing truth or dare?" he suggests, realizing how far they had digressed from the game.

Sam nods, and Gabriel asks him, "Truth or dare?"

* * *

Sam answers the question absentmindedly, his mind on other things. He realizes, that while at first he had been worried when Gabriel admitted that he wasn't gay that his friend might not actually like him, when Gabriel had later said he wasn't attracted to girls that there was the possibility he might be romantically attracted to guys.

_C'mon Sam ask. No more wimping out, no more excuses. _

He fiddles with the blanket on his lap. His inner voices remind him far too much of the Muses from _Hercules,_ especially during that one song where Meg sings how she isn't in love. _Jesus Christ, it's like I'm in some Disney movie or something!_

"You're turn Samalam." Gabriel's voice cuts through his thoughts and Sam blinks before remembering what they were doing.

"Oh, sorry. Uh, truth or dare?"

"Truth."

_Now's your chance Sam!_

"When you said you weren't interested in girls, did you ever...well, you know. Think you'd ever be interested in having a boyfriend? I mean, it technically doesn't break the bet with Lucifer," Sam says, trying to not sound super awkward and failing miserably.

"I'm not sure. I…" Gabriel trailed off, thinking about the question honestly. "I've never really put much thought into having a partner, regardless of their gender. I've just always focused on other things." He looks over at Sam. "How about you? Are there any guys you like or might date?"

"Yeah, there's one." _It's you, _he wants to add.

"_Oh?_" He catches Gabriel's curious look, his friend leaning in closer. "Do continue."

He shrugs. "There's not much else to say. Something tells me it might not end the way I want it and I'm too worried about what might happen if he rejects me."

"You should still try," Gabriel said, shifting closer to him and Sam lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

"I don't know."

_Do it Sam! Say something, anything!_

* * *

They're both then quiet, sitting in the silent room.

Gabriel's fully prepared to drop the whole conversation and move on but Sam doesn't. Assuming his friend was done, Gabriel opened his mouth to ask truth or dare but at that same time Sam spoke.

"It's you, by the way. I've uh, had a crush on you for a while now," he admits and Gabriel doesn't know what to say. He's not sure how to react to all this - he hadn't known. None of it was obvious to him, and Gabriel can see why Sam was hesitant to say. If things weren't sideways then it might make what they had awkward and stiff at best.

He doesn't feel disgusted by the idea of him and Sam together. But, at the same time, he can't see himself with really anyone in a romantic relationship, regardless of it it were with Sam or not.

"You don't have to like me back, it's okay."

Gabriel finds his voice. "No, it's not that. It's just, I don't think I've ever had a crush, or liked anyone romantically, either. Like I don't mind hugs and snuggling up with others but I don't see those as inherently sexual or romantic, just actions for friends, you know?" He runs a hand down his face. "God, I'm making this sound awful and I'm sorry Sam. I like you, but like my very best friend, you know? Like the one I adore over the others and I could see us doing things later in life, together, but nothing strictly labeled 'romantic'."

Sam appears a bit lost, and so is Gabriel.

"Fuck - I'm sorry Sam. I just don't think I'm romantically attracted to guys either. At least, not fully."

"Oh, okay." He pauses. "Are you cool if we can still be friends then? Put all this behind us and move on?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Still though," Gabriel continued. "I think of you as my best friend whom I do things with that's beyond what I do with Charlie or Jess or Kevin or Dorothy. It's hard to explain but do you kinda get what I'm saying?"

His friend nods.

"Okay."

Gabriel scoots over so he's leaning up by Sam and when he looks up at him, there's a shy and small smile on Sam's face. "If things were ever different, I'd definitely date you Moose," he mumbled. "Now sleep?"

"Sleep," Sam agrees, and when he lies down on the couch, Gabriel snuggles up beside him.

It's nothing perfect and Sam's definitely going to have to get over his crush and get used to this, but he's not upset. It's better than losing Gabriel for good.

* * *

When their teacher says "time's up!" all their pencils drop to the table and Gabriel closes his exam.

The whole room is dead silent, all of the students, now allowed to look up from their exams look around at their fellow classmates. Gabriel, who had been seated right beside Jess, turns to her.

"Holy shit," he says and she repeats that in the same tone of disbelief.

Their teacher, who hasn't yet moved to collect their papers, smiles at the grade twelves.

"Congratulations guys, you've officially finished high school," she tells all of them, and Gabriel doesn't know what to say.

All of this feels like some surreal dream, and despite walking into this exam knowing it was his last _ever_ he'd have to do in high school, the finality of all of this never clicked. But now? Now it did. Everyone begins cheering and clapping and Gabriel, grinning widely, joins in on the celebration. _It's done! _His brain yells and Gabriel wants to laugh and cry, maybe both at the same time.

When the clapping and cheering dies down, the teacher continues, "Go and have your summer now. You guys earned it and I'll see you at graduation." She says a few more things but Gabriel doesn't quite catch it, already rising from his seat and looking back at Sam.

The Winchester boy catches his gaze, and turning, grins brightly.

"I can't believe everything's over," Jess says from beside Gabriel, grabbing her pens and calculator and Gabriel snags his as well before the two make their way to the front of the room to grab their bags, planning to meet Sam in the hallway just outside the exam room.

Everyone would be desperate to leave, and it'd be easier to reach him outside then in the room with the others.

"What time is it?" Jess asked when they had snagged their bags and slipped out of the door, sitting on one of the tops of the cafeteria table.

Gabriel checked his phone before saying, "Ten thirty."

"Oh damn. I'm gonna text Charlie and Dorothy to tell them we're finished and then we're all getting ice cream and celebrating." Jess pulled out her phone just as Kevin and Sam walked out of the exam room towards them. She sends a quick text to their group chat before looking up. "How'd you guys find this paper?"

"Easy as hell," Kevin said with a grin and Gabriel can't help but agree. He had been stressed as fuck for this last one because when they had been practising, Gabriel had been shit at biochemistry, and even though he had to review it for the bio exam, he still didn't find it as his strong suit.

But, despite his worries, and knowing last years exam was _rough_, this one had him quite happy. "They didn't even have anything on the iodine number!"

"Oh yea. Or that stuff we learned for like two days. The mass spectrometer shit? None of it," Sam added. "And we had been freaking out about it earlier but nothing."

They had, Gabriel muses. He remembers the frantic scrambling through the final chapter, trying to absorb everything about iodine numbers and mass spectrometers in the fifteen minutes they had before the exam, praying and begging that it wouldn't be on the exam paper or else they might actually fail.

"We're officially free!" Jess jumps off the table and gives both Sam and Kevin a hug. She's giddy and they all are too, riding this high of _holy fuck it's actually over and we don't have to do this anymore!_

"No more stress, no more late nights and bs-ing papers. It's done and we can relax and breathe."

Gabriel nods to Sam's comment. "Now I suggest we drop off our textbooks, go and get Charlie and Dorothy and get ice cream before I crash and sleep for a hundred years," he tells the others and together they walk the empty halls to their chemistry classroom, popping into their chemistry teacher's room to drop off their books.

They end up chatting with him for a few minutes, none caring they interrupted the class, before waving goodbye and wishing them a good summer. After that, it was a quick swing upstairs to Jess' locker for her to grab her books to drop off to the English teacher - she had forgotten to return one of them during the English exam and would rather not be hunted down by the teachers because she decided not to hand back her copy of _The Great Gatsby. _Once that was done, they all made their way to the parking lot, climbing into Sam's car.

"What the fuck are we gonna do now?" Gabriel says out loud, all of a sudden, because the realization is just that. Sudden. He knows tomorrow most of their friend group will be stressing about prom while he's at home with Sam for their movie night but at the same time, everything feels so out of order.

They had all fantasized about this day and it seemed so unattainable and now reality's kicking in and Gabriel doesn't quite know what to do with suddenly all the free time he knows will come next. "I don't know," comes Jess from the back seat, her voice a bit soft.

Kevin gives a groan. "Dude, no existential shit right now. We just finished and I need five minutes, at least before you go all Fitz on me with the human condition and existentialism. "

They all break out laughing at that comment, understanding Kevin's pain - they had all been in Fitz's grade eleven first semester English class and that had been wild. Two weeks on the human condition alone and existentialism (and this hadn't even been philosophy, just good ol' Fitz being Fitz) which had, at one point, become a conversation about white supremacy in America before shifting into a discussion about coloured chalk vs. white chalk.

"I'm gonna miss those conversations. Might've hallucinated a few due to it being like nine o'clock and I was surviving on three hours of sleep, but good times," Sam replied, managing to catch his breath before they all dissolved into laughter again.

"Don't forget 'The burning of _incest _filled the air!'" Gabriel wheezes - they had been reading Oedipus Rex and one kid had read _incest _ instead of _incense _which had proceeded to break their teacher for about ten minutes - and they all laugh harder.

Gabriel's gonna miss this, sitting here with his friends, laughing their asses off to stupid memories but while he's won the bet and finished high school, nothing feels any different. Not fully.

* * *

Gabriel doesn't know why he decided to do this. It's an awful idea - absolutely terrible. It's gonna go wrong or some shit and Gabriel's gonna have to move to Arizona, and not because he failed Data Management or Calculus - which he didn't. All because he's scared to tell his friends.

"You know you don't have to do this," Sam whispers softly to Gabriel, and Gabriel realizes that his inner terror and nerves are displayed right on his face.

"No I have to," Gabriel replied, choosing to speak louder than a whisper. "They deserve to know."

Sam gave him a look, a slight frown on his face and Gabriel could tell exactly what the brunet was trying to say without even a single word being uttered. The barely there frown, the furrowed brow, all of it screamed to Gabriel that Sam disagreed with what he just said.

Too bad though, he thinks, rolling up his metaphorical sleeves. He's sure this won't change anything between them.

(God he's hopes so.)

He goes over to his friends at their table they've basically claimed as theirs in the library for their study session for English initially and now that the exam was over, they were just chilling here (they all, for once, had the same English class, which was amazing), nervously fiddling with his phone in his hands. Sam trails behind him like a shadow.

Dorothy looks up from her phone and frowns. "What's wrong, Gabe?"

"Yeah, who died?" Charlie adds, and if Gabriel wasn't so nervous he'd crack a joke at that but he stays silent. "Oh shit, did someone actually die?" She sounds much more serious, no longer acting all jokingly, and Jess and Kevin look his way as well.

"I, uh, not exactly." He glances back at Sam, who nods encouragingly. Gabriel takes a deep breath before continuing. "I'm just -" _fuck, he can't do this. Lie, lie! _Quickly, he creates a lie. "I'm just stressed about uni and us all going our separate ways after this," he lies, proud at least he didn't stutter. Still, it sounds unconvincing, if the looks he gets in response are anything to go off of.

They all look ready to call bullshit, Charlie especially, but none of them do, and Gabriel, grateful, puts the whole thing behind him. He can still feel Sam watching him as they sit down and join the others at the table.

_He's not gonna crack, _he tells himself, leaning back in his chair.

_He's not gonna crack, _he tells himself, as he listens to Jess explain her essay about setting in _Atonement._

_He's not gonna crack, _he tells himself, as he listens to Jess and Kevin talk about _Apples and Oranges _and _Five Points _as their two short stories they used too.

_He's not gonna crack, _he tells himself, but he does.

Ten minutes later.

"I'm ace," he blurts out, and his friends look over at him. Gabriel wonders if he should leave, if he should pack his things up and go elsewhere before the rejection kicks in. Just because Sam didn't, doesn't mean the others won't.

"Oh, cool," Charlie says, so nonchalant that Gabriel blinks in surprise.

"I...what?"

"That's not being attracted to anyone, right? Sexually at least?" Jess adds, far too calm.

"Um, yes?"

"Huh. I mean, I can see it, you turning down all those girls and shit whenever they came and asked you. Are you aromantic as well?" Jess asks and Gabriel gives a shrug.

"I think?"

She smiles. "Well whether you are or aren't we won't judge you. Looks like the friend group's split down the middle with who's straight and who's not, huh?" It's a joke that makes Gabriel smile, and even the others chuckle.

"Not quite. I'm bi," adds Sam. "It looks like it's just you and Kev, Jess."

Gabriel begins to chuckle too, his nerves disappearing. "So you're all cool?"

Kevin is the one who answers the question. "Dude, of course. We couldn't care less about who you are, or in this case, _aren't _attracted to." The others nod and give murmurs in agreement.

"Cool. So, how'd you guys use _Oranges and Apples_ in the final essay?" he asks, moving on as if it was nothing.

Dorothy begins, "Okay, so with topic three, I talked about how Murray -" she cuts herself off and glares at her girlfriend. "You didn't talk about him begin supposedly gay did you?"

Charlie, who had opened her mouth to interrupt, pouts and Gabriel laughs. Sam catches his eye from his seat on Gabriel's left, bumping his leg with his foot. The look he gives him seems to say, _see, it's all good, _and Gabriel can't help but agree.

"I mean, I can see what Charlie's trying to get at," he begins, saying it just to cause shit and Dorothy smacks him.

"Don't you even start," she hushes, turning to the rest of the group and asking for how they had approached the essay question. (This is all in good humour, they both know this, and Gabriel can't help but find it amusing.)

* * *

Graduation comes all too quickly, and yet, somehow, still too slow. It's funny, because after exams end, Gabriel, Sam, and the rest of their gang crash at Gabriel's house for the Friday evening, which leads to a sleepover, which leads to them all still being there Sunday morning. At that point, their brains still haven't quite registered the fact they've graduated - four years of high school, done, and twelve years later they're free to basically do what they please. A sweet reward that Gabriel had always wanted at multiple points in his academic career - his grade eight graduation, after starting high school, grade eleven, even the first month of grade twelve - but right now, he's in a state of limbo.

"I don't feel graduated," Kevin had said out loud, that Saturday evening, as they all sat around the fire pit in Gabriel's backyard. "This just feels like I finished any other grade."

And Gabriel had agreed. Perhaps they were just so used to twelve years of finishing a grade, summer and then next grade or maybe it was the fact that Gabriel was more focused on the bet than anything else.

He had won, officially - Well, not _officially_ in the sense that he hadn't yet gotten the money and gotten Lucifer to admit he lost but he basically won. He was graduating later this week and there was no chance of Lucifer making one last big action to win so in his mind, he had won - having beat Lucifer at his own bet and Gabriel could hardly wait to see Lucifer's reaction.

When June twenty-sixth comes 'round, that's the one thing that's on his mind, not the fact in a few hours, he'll be lining up at the base of the stage, waiting to receive a piece of paper that basically says he's finished high school. Dressed in a navy blue suit with a maroon tie and clean white button up underneath, Gabriel still isn't considering he's getting ready for his graduation. To him, grinning in the mirror as he fixes his tie before slipping on the maroon robe, it's more like he's dressing up to celebrate the fact he was the winner of the bet. He catches Lucifer as his older brother's reflection appears briefly in the mirror.

"Graduation day, Luce," Gabriel says, looking at his brother's reflection and Lucifer nods, a smile creeping onto his face.

"That it is, brother. You got your wallet?"

Gabriel does, although there's no cash in it. "Do you?"

Lucifer pats the back pocket of his dress pants, and Gabriel figures his wallets in there.

"Hey, did pops happen to get the evening off to come? Or is he planning to have a perfect score of missing all our graduations?" Gabriel adds, after there's a moment of silence between the two of them. He's still fiddling with his gown, making sure the golden neck-sash is on properly and covering the zipper in the gown's front.

His brother sighs, and it's not like Gabriel hadn't expected to get a positive answer. Their father always focused on work over his children, ever since Gabriel was little when their mom passed away and even when he wasn't working, he was distant at best.

"He said he was supposed to be finished tonight for seven-thirty, but knowing him…" Lucifer trails off, his smile dropping and Gabriel's does too.

"He'll stay later. Yeah, I know." He looks away from his brother's reflection in the mirror, the mood of the room now somber. Their father was always more than willing to pick up extra hours at the office, even when there were important engagements with their family. It's not like they were short on cash, their father just a, well, workaholic didn't quite cut it when describing their father's obsession and devotion to his job over his family . "Just thought I'd ask anyways."

Lucifer moves towards Gabriel, and places a hand on his shoulder. "Mikey, Raph, and I will still be don't need that deadbeat to ruin the celebration," Lucifer tells his little brother, trying to lighten up the mood. "We can sit for fucking four hours and listen to them call up the names of a bunch of kids you've probably never talked to in the last four years nor will you ever again, and then go out and grab burgers and shakes, celebrating your graduation and my seventy five dollar earnings."

"Yeah, okay," Gabriel says at first, glancing back up at his brother. He lets the words sink in before shoving his brother. "Wait, no. Nice try, but we're gonna celebrate my grad and winning of our bet," he says, after realizing what his brother said.

He knows Lucifer also said that, alongside everything else to help lighten up the mood and it works, bringing a small smile back to Gabriel's face (which he's grateful for his brother for doing. Lucifer could be a dick at times, but he still cared for his siblings).

* * *

The drive to the hall where they're holding Gabriel's graduation is relatively short, with the bickering kept to a minimum - although one does start within moments of leaving their front door, to which Lucifer, who had been planning to drive his car to the hall found himself stuck in the passenger seat when Michael declared he was the driver. This had lead to Lucifer choosing to sulk, quite child-like after not getting his way, in the front seat. And, when Michael swatted away Lucifer's hand from the radio buttons with the intent to either flip through the stations more quickly and frequently than Gabriel would (which, in all honesty, wasn't as bad as Michael made it out to seem, Gabriel thought from the backseat) or connect his phone via Bluetooth to play his own music, Lucifer's sulking seemed to grow -with only one issue settling before they pulled into the hall's parking lot. When Michael parked the car in the half-full lot, Gabriel found himself staring out at the sea of maroon that surrounded the walkway right by the front doors and front doors as well, realizing that with this many kids the ceremony would definitely be the four hours he had heard in passing last week.

Shit.

His only saving grace was knowing Jess would be seated somewhere near him (since the seating plan was organized alphabetically and M came right before N) which would help kill a few hours.

"Okay. I want pictures," Michael said, turning off the ignition and Gabriel made a face, unbuckling his seatbelt.

"Pictures? Really Mikey?" Gabriel whined, not understanding why his brother was all of a sudden now so interested in taking photos to commemorate special "milestones" (as Lucifer had called it. Gabriel just called it a big fuss over four years of suffering). "Since when have you turned into an old lady who needs to capture every moment of her grandchild's life?"

Michael didn't give him a response. Instead, he looked up at the front mirror, and gave Gabriel a stare that told Gabriel this wasn't optional, and so the graduate sighed.

"Fine."

They then all got out of the car, and Gabriel spent the next few minutes -suffering - taking photos with each of his brothers separately, both with his cap on and without, glaring at both the sun -which of course was in his eyes (He expected nothing less). Which added more time of trying to get photos without all of them squinting or looked pained - and whoever was taking the photo. After one final one with the four of them, to which involved some random parents of some kid Gabriel didn't know taking the photo for them, Gabriel made his way quickly to the crowd of maroon to escape his brothers and find his friends, bidding a "see you later," over his shoulder to them. He scans the crowd as he gets closer, trying to find something that helps identify his friends from the uniform-ness of everyone else, eventually pulling his phone out when he has no luck.

**'**_**You guys here yet?'**_ he asks to their group chat and then waits for a response from the others.

He gets some '_**yes**_'s from all except Sam, who texts back after a few minutes saying he had just left his house.

* * *

**JESS: **I'm by the large shrub, near the door. Where the rest of you guys at?

* * *

Gabriel looks away from his phone to locate the large shrub near the hall's doors to find Jess.

In his hand, his phone buzzes as Gabriel spots the shrub and begins pushing through the other graduating students, and when he eventually reaches the shrub, he finds Jess waving her cap eagerly to get his attention. Unlike many of the other girls around them, her gown is still unzipped, revealing a blue and lavender dress underneath.

"Gabe!" she calls out as she catches him in the crowd, grinning wildly.

Narrowly avoiding a crushed toe via six-inch heels by the girl beside him, Gabriel reaches Jess and she gives him a hug.

"Looking good," she says, after pulling away and giving a wolf whistle, smile still on her face and he grins too.

"Right back at 'ya, Jessie," Gabriel said. "You find the others?"

"I haven't found Kevin yet but I bumped into Charlie and Dorothy earlier. They're in the gym where we have to wait - air conditioning and all that."

"That's fair," Gabriel surmises, already starting to feel hot in his gown. Pair that with Charlie's seemingly inability to be anywhere with temperatures over 25 degrees and it makes sense their friend had decided to disappear into the one place that was away from the heat. "You wanna wait for Kev and Sam to show up before going in or just tell 'em to meet us there and join the girls?"

Jess gives him a shrug, using one hand to push all her long blonde hair over one shoulder. "Honestly, I don't mind the heat," she told him honestly. "If you wanna go, we can though."

He shakes his head. "Nah. Let's stay here. As much as air conditioning sounds nice, I feel like it's gonna be just as crowded in the gym and we'll still be standing around waiting." Gabriel looks over at the crowd, looking for Kevin. "It'll be easier to catch the boys out here before going in anyways. I think," he added, more as an afterthought, and Jess nodded in agreement.

"Sounds good. So, today's the day you collect your winnings, huh?" Jess said, after a moment of silence had fallen between them, and Gabriel looks back at her.

"Yeah. It's funny," Gabriel begins, "It's both graduation and the end of the bet, two things I've been waiting for, for like four years and now it's here I'm just thinking of everything that happened."

"What do you mean?"

Gabriel takes a breath. "I just...At the end of tonight, I'll officially be done high school, be seventy-five bucks richer and having come out to my brother," He explains and Jess gives him a sympathetic look.

"You don't have to tell him, you know. You could just not saying anything about being asexual," Jess said. "You don't have to explain yourself to win the bet."

He doesn't answer right away and so Jess places a hand on his arm, her smile fading. "Whatcha gonna spend the money on?" She asked, changing the subject when she notices Gabriel doesn't appear to be responding to her, and Gabriel's grateful for that.

"Maybe I'll treat us all to burgers and shakes afterwards where we all end up crowded around a dingy fast food booth in overly fancy clothes," Gabriel jokes, and Jess' smile is back.

"Sounds fancy." She giggles, and both picture how ridiculous it would be, all wearing graduation gowns and caps eating _Frosties _or _Harvey's _Burgers with slushies in those booths with the perpetual sticky, crumble-covered tables at midnight, sticking out like sore thumbs. "I bet the staff won't even be fazed by us - they've probably seen much worse."

Gabriel laughs, nodding.

"How, before we go inside. You're gonna want to strangle me but I want photos of us," Jess told him, pulling out her phone. "At least one before we're covered in ice-cream and mustard because that's gonna happen eventually and I actually happen to like this dress."

Any other person who asked for photos Gabriel would turn down, straight out refusing to comply but Gabriel could never say no to Jess. Especially when she began to pout, and give him a sad look - which honestly, she did that because she knew she could milk it. She didn't have to do that, Gabriel always did whatever Jess asked him to do, and it was merely for theatrics. He did it not out of fear of her doing something that might humiliate him but rather due to their close friendship and Gabriel seeing Jess as a sister (Charlie, he saw as one as well, mainly a result of the three growing up so close together. He knew as well that both Jess and Charlie viewed him as their brother, despite no blood relations). So while making it look like it was such a struggle to agree to - both knew this was fake - Gabriel nodded and moved closer towards her.

"One picture," he says, as they both smile.

"Of course," Jess replies, in a tone and look that both say, _we'll take five serious ones and then the rest will be us goofing off. _

* * *

When the photos are all over and they've found Kevin and his girlfriend, Channing, over near the parking lot, the four decided to make their way inside the building to escape the heat. Despite the sun beginning to set, it was still relatively hot outside and they ultimately decided it would be better (and easier) to wait for Sam inside the hall's gym with Charlie and Dorothy in the air conditioning than sweat away outside in the crowd of other graduating students.

Part of Gabriel might've felt a bit guilty, choosing to leave without waiting for his friend, but the moment he entered the air conditioned building, that tiny bit of guilt was crushed down.

He gave a sigh of relief, no longer feeling the heat and without glancing at his friends, Gabriel knew they were probably feeling the same way he was.

"Sweet, sweet air conditioning," Gabriel gave another turned down a hallway, following the arrows directing them to the gym where they'd wait until the ceremony started. "I actually was worried they'd say 'fuck it' and not have the ac on."

"Honestly, they still have a chance to do that," Kevin pointed out, as they saw the gym up ahead. "There must be, what, four hundred kids here? Almost five hundred? Pair that with the fact they gave each of those kids four tickets to bring family members along and you have -"

"A shit ton of people in a big room," Jess interrupted, not bothering to try and figure out the actual number like Kevin appeared to be doing.

Kevin nodded. "Yeah. Basically."

Gabriel groaned. He could just picture what the place would be like, if not during the ceremony, but right after, smelling of stale sweat and packed with people.

"At least, from what I've heard, it's not going to be four hours," Channing pipes up, as the enter the gym.

Gabriel looks over at her, hoping she's right. He can't imagine sitting here for four hours, waiting to get a stupid piece of paper that congratulated him on four years of suffering.

"Just you wait, it's gonna be longer than that, somehow," he grumbles.

The forty-five minutes they still have to kill before the ceremony starts at seven isn't too bad - they find Charlie and Dorothy relatively quick, and spend the time finding where they need to line up and then afterwards chatting. There's a few more pictures being taken, now that they've got more of the group here, some talking with their old teachers, and discussions of plans for the summer. Jess brings up how her aunt offered for her to use her cottage for the summer, meaning they've all been basically invited to spend at least a weekend, if not a full week up there, by the beach, and there's also plans to go to San Diego for Comic-Con altogether, before they all are so busy in August (with university stuff).

Sam joins them afterwards, at about ten minutes before they need to line up, and shoots Gabriel a knowing grin, which is returned happily. _Tonight's the night, _it seems to say, and Gabriel knows that, after having let Sam in on every detail of the bet - even the things the rest of their friend group does know - that the taller man's as equally excited to see Lucifer's face when Gabriel finally wins the four year bet.

"Did you're bother mention the bet earlier?" Sam asks, as one of the teachers grabs a microphone to call their attention.

"You mean was he bragging about winning?"

Sam shrugged. "Sure. I figure he can't actually think he's lost, at least not fully."

"Well, he didn't act completely smug about all of it, but he did appear quite confident when I told him he shouldn't forget his wallet," Gabriel said and Sam chuckled.

"And did he say the same thing back to you?"

Gabriel nodded. "Too bad I won't be needing it," he says with a laugh. He's about to say more but the teacher interrupts with an announcement, going over how they're supposed to properly wear their hats and gowns, and soon, their friend group is separated as teachers shuffle them around, arranging and rearranging people around in their proper lines, all sorted by alphabetical order (minus those who are receiving special awards, those kids are lined up separately, to sit elsewhere in the auditorium part to make it easier for them to receive their awards without climbing over everyone else in their row) to get ready to start.

Sam gives him an apologetic look as he leaves to the award section, along with Kevin and Dorothy, and the other three of them find their places.

"You better walk outta here with seven awards Sam-I-Am or I'm starting a riot," Gabriel called out to his friend, and the people right around them snicker.

They all know it's more than possible for Sam to be walking home with a few awards. He's quite smart and while not valedictorian, he does have one of the highest averages in their grade, and was in the top three in many of his classes. If Sam walked away with less than three awards, Gabriel would one hundred percent call bullshit and demand they recheck their papers.

"I'll try my best," Sam shouts back, and with a wide grin, Gabriel makes his way to his line with Jess, who's a few people behind him.

"Let's get ready for the longest four hours of our lives," he jokes to the blonde, who nudges his shoulder and replies, "There's free Wi-Fi. As long as you got your phone, we'll survive."

At that, he perks up a bit.

"Now let's go get that damn piece of paper I worked four years for."

* * *

Most of the ceremony passes not quite in a blur, as Gabriel remembers _every damn minute of it _but it does pass faster than he had initially expected it to. When the valedictorian introduces the class and welcomes the parents, Gabriel's paying attention to the speech. It's still the beginning and the chairs are fairly comfortable so he's thinking, _hey, this might not be too bad. _

But then the valedictorian says how they better get comfy because "it's gonna be a long four hours," there's a murmur amongst the students and Gabriel's beginning to doubt this'll be okay. Then, he checks the fancy program they had left on his seat and skims through it, heart sinking as he sees two pages back and front covered with awards they had to get through, and then almost four pages back and front of names.

_Holy fuck. it's gonna be four hours. At least._

And it all honesty, it feels like fours hours.

His patients dwindles somewhere during the beginning of handing out the awards - okay, so he lasted like fifteen minutes, like many could last longer - and only looks up from his phone where he's alternating between texting his friends and playing games to cheer when Charlie, Sam, or Kevin receive any awards. He makes sure to be as loud as possible during those moments when they cross the stage, receiving their package of awards - and thank fuck they did it all in one package with the card-reader person at the front just reading off the list of all the important accomplishments the person had received rather than the one person coming up like fifty times to get each individual award. That had to have shaved off at least an hour, Gabriel wants to think, but he could be wrong. Maybe they just did it that way to have more time with the names of the rest of the students, to which he still thinks fuck - and after shaking hands with the principal and posing for a photo, descends the stage to return back to their seats. After that, when they finish calling up his friends and begin with the students whose last names start with A, Gabriel zones out.

Back to his phone his attention goes and it's only after they've begun to make it to his section of the auditorium does he zone back in, and realize that it' nearly his turn.

He stands with the rest of his row, and they all make their way in a line to the stairs at the side of the stage, holding their cards with their names on it for the teacher at the podium to read - Gabriel wonders if he were to lose this, like last second, how pissed they'd be. Or if he changed some of the things on it. Like, sure, having a four year honour roll would be nice, but why change his core french certificate to french immersion? No harm in that, plus, it wasn't like he was going to continue with french later in life - and Gabriel wonders if he'll watch anyone trip while going across the stage. There's been at least one or two girls he and Jess have seen wobble while going down the stairs in ridiculously high heels and one girl flat up walked barefoot across the stage because of her shoes, so it's not exactly improbable that it might happen, but it would make this whole thing a bit more interesting.

As they're lined up, Gabriel briefly checks his phone, seeing the time is quarter to nine, so the timing is actually not too bad - it's only been about two hours and they're more than half way through all the graduates. Maybe they'll finish before ten at this rate, cut it down to three hours rather than four like it was joked earlier.

The phone slips back into his pocket as Gabriel gets closer to the podium, and before he knows it, it's his turn. He hands over his card to the teacher at the podium, whispering his name as well to avoid it being mispronounced and when it's called - somehow the last name is still mispronounced, which makes no sense as it's not even that hard to pronounce? - Gabriel climbs the stage to shake the principal's hand. It then passes all too fast, him being handed over his diploma, smiling for the camera, staring at the huge crowd of bright lights and bored students, before it's over and walking down the stairs and making his way back to his seat. It all happens far too quickly, much faster than he had thought, especially with how long he had to wait to get his diploma, and yet, here he is, about ten minutes later, back in his seat with a piece of paper that basically says, "congrats you finished high school, now go free! Shoo!"

There's still more kids for them to call, and so Gabriel, before pulling out his phone again, decides to open up the folder he got for his diploma, and look at it. He's waited this long for the damn thing, and he wants to make sure it doesn't look like they just pulled up _Microsoft Word _and changed the paper's orientation. (It looks oddly like Times New Roman and Gabriel wants to screech).

His phone buzzes once, when Jess is back in her seat and looking at her own diploma and the way too ironic incident occurs that has them joking about it, even days later. What happens is Gabriel gets a text from Jess asking him to send her a photo of what the inside of his folder looks like with the diploma.

_Odd, but okay,_ Gabriel thinks, but does so anyways.

* * *

**GABRIEL**: _**[photo attached]**_

**GABRIEL**: why tho?

* * *

There's a pause and Jess he can see is looking at the phone before glancing back at her folder. Then she texts:

* * *

**JESS**: they fucked up

**GABRIEL**: what?

**JESS**: they fucked up and my diplomas not here?

* * *

Gabriel doesn't know how to respond at first.

* * *

**JESS**: rip guess i didn't graduate?

* * *

He can tell she's cracking jokes to hide the fact she's freaking out right now and he asks her to send her diploma down to him to check, thinking it might be a mistake, but when Gabriel gets her folder, he finds Jess is right. Inside it, it just says on a piece of white printer paper is, "**CONGRATS CLASS OF 2019**" and nothing else. Just that, bolded.

"What the fuck?" he murmurs, and after looking around at the rest of the folder, comparing it to his, he finds it's not actually Jess'. They gave her the wrong one. "Jess!" He stage whispers, and the blonde looks over at him, biting her lip. He gestures for her to come, and she does, bending down to not obviously attract attention from the rest of the parents and she snags a seat beside Gabriel which is now empty - as the person had, after getting their diploma just up and left. They got what they came for, and now they could leave.

"So? Guess they really want me to stay, huh? First they lose my acceptance, and now my diploma."

She's cracking another joke, but he can see how her knee bounces anxiously and voice wavers.

This is bugging her far more than she's letting on, and Gabriel hates how she ties to play it off as nothing when it clearly is something important to her. so Gabriel looks at it quickly, noticing something odd. "You got the wrong one," he explains, and her eyes go wide.

"What?"

Gabriel pointed at the name on the photo card inside, which had a code to allow the individual to access their photos of the event. "This isn't yours," he explains. "You're not some guy named Shawn."

Jess is silent before she snatches it back from Gabriel. "They gave me the wrong diploma," Jess says quietly, more in disbelief as she notices the name on the photo card. Then, she repeats it a bit louder, grinning. All the tension and worry that had previously been on her face had melted away into relief and bright expression.

Her excitement dropped when she looked up at Gabriel, smile losing some of its brightness "What am I going to do then?"

"Why don't you go and talk to one of the teachers over there?" He asked, gesturing to the two teachers standing over at the edge of the stage, by the stairs.

A box sits by their feet, near a table, and Gabriel thinks that they had to have some of the extra diplomas in there, as well as those by kids who didn't come that evening. And, most likely, since Jess probably got the diploma of a kid who wasn't here, they had to have her diploma.

Jess looks over where the teacher are before nodding. "Okay."

Grabbing her incorrect diploma, Jess gets to her feet and moves her way down the row of students to the aisle. She pauses, fixing her dress before walking with a walk that Gabriel could only describe as one that means business. Her head is held high, stride solid and without hesitation and she quickly and gracefully climbs the few stairs leading to the teachers who are talking quietly in their little corner away from the view of the rest of the parents and guests.

He watches as Jess talks with them, handing over her incorrect diploma and grabbing another. There's a moment when she flips it open, most likely to check this time the contents were correct, and when it seems that it is, Jess looks up with a bright smile in Gabriel's direction. He gives her a thumbs up in response, figuring she was successful, if her smile suggests anything. Jess then walks right back to their row, slipping past the students until she gets back to her chair beside Gabriel, sitting down happily beside him.

"You get to graduate now?" He joked, and she nods.

"Yup!" Jess is smiling again, bright and warm. "No victory lap for me," she adds, holding onto the diploma tightly.

"Hooray!"

They spend the last bit of the ceremony together, and when it finally comes to a close, toss their caps up into the air with the rest of their graduating class. Then comes the task of finding it again, then making their way through the swarm of people out of the auditorium area, then the main lobby - which stunk just _beautifully _of sweat, cologne, and perfumes - and out the main doors into the cool outside. Gabriel and Jess had been lucky, managing to snag Charlie, Sam, Kevin, and his girlfriend before they all left the auditorium to go into the crowd that was leaving to go outside and avoiding the scramble of trying to find them outside in the dark with everyone else.

Outside, now with his friends and the parents means a few more group pictures which lasts ten minutes before Gabriel can eventually slip away to find his brother to collect his earnings. Sam, noticing Gabriel's movement, joins his friend to see the results of the four year bet.

Gabriel, still donning his maroon graduation robe, with his diploma and cap in hand, weaves his way through the crowd towards his older brother with Sam at his side.

Lucifer leans against one of the pillars by the front doors of the hall, attempting to pull of the facade of being both too cool and bored out of his mind. When Gabriel finally catches his brother near the back, he grins and picks up his pace. _Time to be seventy-five bucks richer, _he tells himself, eager to not only get the money but also see Lucifer's face when his older brother realized he had lost.

"So, Luce, got my money?" He asks when the two are within a close distance and his brother chuckles.

"Hello to you too Gabe." Lucifer pushes off the pillar, standing in front of his brother. "Why, you took the words right out of my mouth," he continues.

Gabriel raises a brow, relaxed. "Oh? You seem pretty confident for someone who just lost the bet he made."

"Lost? Me? I think you've got the two of us confused Gabriel. May I remind you, the rules were you can't have a girlfriend before you graduated and also you had to pay up if you had sex with another girl."

"Oh, I know Luci." Gabriel's grin grows wider. "No need to remind me of the terms we agreed to," he adds cheekily.

Lucifer looks at his expectantly, as if waiting for Gabriel to pull out his wallet and fork over the cash. That doesn't happen however.

"And I didn't."

His brother snorts, rolling his eyes. "Ya, okay, _sure_." Lucifer stretches out the word, disbelief colouring his words, and it's not until he really focuses on Gabriel's expression, his calm demeanor and everything does some doubt appear to creep in.

Gabriel sees that and grins wider, if that's even possible at this rate.

Lucifer seems to frown in return. "You didn't? At all?"

His little brother laughs loudly, eyes bright. "Nope. No sex, no girlfriend, nothing. So -" And this is the moment Gabriel's been waiting for for quite some time now - "Pay up brother. You lost."

"Impossible," Lucifer growls, not giving over the money. "What about Dorothy? Charlie? Jess? Those other girls you mentioned when I asked you about any of the dates I sent you on? What were their names?" He pauses, trying to think of the names and Gabriel can tell his poor brother's grasping at straws now, completely thrown off his rhythm. He's no longer calm and collected but appears to be panicking a bit. "But… But Amanda!"

"Well, Dorothy and Charlie are gay. They're dating, actually, funnily enough. Jess was dating Brady on and off, and Amanda was actually a guy in my math class that misunderstood my kindness for something more romantic. And, then we had one of Jess' friends, pretended to be Amanda and go on a couple 'dates' with me, " Gabriel explained.

Lucifer is silent, staring at his brother with a shocked expression. "But, you're...You had to have at least hooked up with someone at some party or house or something, right?"

_Oh lord, he sounds so desperate! _Gabriel realizes with glee.

"Nah, that's not really my cup of tea."

"I.. but…" Lucifer continues to stammer and try to produce a sentence but nothing intelligent forms.

"So, I guess that means I get the seventy-five bucks brother. You got outsmarted by me," Gabriel purrs, and where the bet had first formed with Gabriel being the prey and Lucifer the grinning at who had caught the canary, it was now the reverse.

"You cheated."

His brother could huff and puff all he wanted, complain over and over about how Gabriel had been unfair, but he didn't care.

"Actually I didn't. You just didn't realize I had an ace up my sleeve this whole time," Gabriel admits, without telling the whole truth. Lucifer doesn't need to know whether the bet existed or not, Gabriel wouldn't have had sex with someone or dated a girl - or guy.

At that point, Lucifer glances over to Sam, who had snorted at the comment, and frowns further. "Is that..?" He begins and Gabriel shakes his head, knowing where the conversation was going.

"No. He's not my boyfriend. Although, I could've had one because you were extremely specific when you said if i _got a girlfriend before I graduated._" He put the emphasis on Lucifer's words. There had been a reason Gabriel had echoed those back to Lucifer before agreeing, and his brother had fully missed it in his hetero-normative ways.

"Having a boyfriend at that time would still break the bet!" he tried to argue, rather weakly, and Gabriel didn't buy it one bit.

"You specifically only said girlfriend. And only had sex with a girl. No boys. Or anyone that wasn't female," Gabriel points out, ripping apart the weak reply.

Lucifer had no way to turn it back on him, to win the bet he had made. So, with a sigh and some grumbling, fishes out his wallet and hands Gabriel over the money. "You're lucky I brought my wallet. I know you didn't."

Gabriel shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I won, Luce." He holds his hand out and when Lucifer places it in his hand, takes his time to carefully count it all, ensuring his brother hasn't skimped out on him by a few dollars. Once it's all good, Gabriel pockets the money and flashes his brother a bright smile.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he says, using the same words he's all too familiar with hearing after having always lost their bets, and Gabriel gets an eye roll in return. "Looks like even the devil can be beaten in one of his own deals."

"Whatever," Lucifer mutters before walking away, leaving Gabriel to stand next to Sam by the doors to the hall.

He turns to Sam, and says, "I can't believe it's over. Wow."

"Congrats on winning," Sam gives him a warm smile, and Gabriel thinks, maybe if things were different, they might still be here, collecting the cash, with Sam slipping his hand into Gabriel's, pressing a kiss on his cheek.

But that doesn't happen. They don't become lovers, just friends, and Gabriel's okay with that.

"Thanks Samalam. So, what'd ya say we get the girls and Kevin and go get _Frosties _at almost midnight? My treat?" He offers, and Sam laughs.

"Sounds perfect."

Gabriel offers him his arm, and Sam links his with Gabriel's and the two together walk back in the direction of where they left their friends, Gabriel seventy-five bucks richer and carrying his diploma.

"You think Lucifer learned his lesson with making bets like this?" Sam asked, eventually, right before they got to their friends.

"Pff, nah. I doubt it. He's just gonna work on his wording better, if anything. You up for a movie night next weekend? Right before we got to Jess' aunt's cottage? I had checked and there's a drive in not too bad with a pretty good line up if you're interested," Gabriel looks over at Sam, who nods.

"Sounds awesome. I've always wanted to go to a drive in movie."

"Sweet! I'll see with the others and we can plan from there."

* * *

When they reach the girls and Kevin, Jess gives him a curious look.

"You get your earnings?"

"Hell ya. We still up for frosties?" He asks the rest of the group who nod. Jess pulls out the keys to her car - she had driven here in her car with her mom while her dad had come separately straight from work.

"Let's go and celebrate."

* * *

They end up sitting squeezed into a table at Wendy's with their frosties, their gowns and diplomas and caps left in Jess' truck. The employee who served them looked indifferent as she handed over their frosties, not caring for the far too fancy outfits and hair, just waiting to go home at the end of her shift.

"To four year bets and graduating from hell," Charlie exclaims, far too loud in a near silent Wendy's.

She raises her frostie, and Gabriel does the same, with the others soon following in suit. "To surviving hell and also beating the devil," he jokes.

* * *

**I'm proud that I finally finished this, as well as that it's not complete bullshit. It's funny it basically took me four years to finally finish, but hey, that's just life sometimes. **

**Small announcement: this will be the last fanfic I post on this account. I don't use anymore and spend more of my time on Ao3, mainly due to it's easy to use tagging system and how everything is organized, even with reviews and sorting through fics. I will be posting on my Ao3 but will leave this account up for anyone to keep reading my stuff, especially the older works as I've yet to actually move those over to my Ao3. I started this account back in grade seven and i'm now in university so it's been about six years and while I still have fond memories of this site, I just don't use it anymore. Plus, since it's attached to my old email, I don't get the notifications on my phone unless I actively log in to the email account to check (which I don't). **

**Mainly, for a TL;DR: I'm not gonna post anymore on this account but it will stay up still. If you wanna read my stuff, you can find me on Ao3 as** Broken_Twisted_Lullabies **or tumblr at **twisted-pride.

**Take care you guys and thanks for everything!**

**-Twist**


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